The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2020 season is now in the books, and it ended in spectacular fashion—though the wrong kind of spectacular—in a dismal postseason defeat at the hands of the Cleveland Browns, sending them into an early offseason mode after going 12-4 in the regular season and winning the AFC North for the first time in three years.
After setting a franchise record by opening the year on an 11-game winning streak, they followed that up by losing three games in a row, going 1-4 in the final five games, with only a 17-point comeback staving off a five-game slide. But all the issues they had in the regular season showed up in the postseason that resulted in their early exit.
The only thing facing them now as they head into 2021 is more questions, and right now, they lack answers. What will Ben Roethlisberger do, and what will they do with him? What will the salary cap look like? How many free agents are they going to lose? Who could they possibly afford to retain? Who might they part ways with—not just on the roster, but also on the coaching staff?
These are the sorts of questions among many others that we have been exploring on a daily basis and will continue to do so. Football has become a year-round pastime and there is always a question to be asked, though there is rarely a concrete answer, as I’ve learned in my years of doing this.
Question: What are the odds of the Steelers drafting a quarterback in the first two rounds of the 2021 NFL Draft?
While the draft is still a couple of months away, that hasn’t ever stopped football fans from talking about it, and this year for the Steelers, while free agency still needs to be taken care of, it’s hard to find a position on the roster that isn’t a need at some level.
Even if you happen to be among the seemingly small minority of those who believe that Ben Roethlisberger is still capable of winning another Super Bowl this year, quarterback has to be on the needs list anyway, because frankly, he’s knocking on the door of 40 years old. Even Bill Belichick was drafting quarterbacks with Tom Brady still playing at a high level (e.g. Jimmy G).
Of course, Pittsburgh is drafting in the bottom third of the first round, where is becomes more difficult to identify blue-chip prospects at the quarterback position, as, increasingly, they tend to fly off the board. But it’s not like teams stop drafting quarterbacks after the first round.
After all, the Steelers themselves drafted Mason Rudolph in the third in 2018, saying that they had him graded with the first-rounders. And needless to say, they’re in a much more vulnerable spot at this point. So what are the odds that, by at least the end of the first round, they come away with another quarterback? It’s certainly greater than a zero percent chance.
