The Pittsburgh Steelers are back in the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex earlier than they had anticipated, having been ousted before they even reached the postseason, which unfortunately marks the sixth consecutive season in which they failed to win a postseason game—tying their longest drought of the Super Bowl era. Yet again, they find themselves undergoing the exit meeting process earlier than anticipated, which means so are we.
The Steelers did arguably perform at or above expectations this year by going 9-8 and nearly making the postseason at all, a reflection of just how much talent they lost during the offseason, from Ben Roethlisberger and Joe Haden to most of their wide receiver room, not to mention Stephon Tuitt’s decision to retire.
While we might not know all the details about what goes on between head coach Mike Tomlin and his players during these exit meetings, we do know how we would conduct those meetings if they were let up to us. So here are the Depot’s exit meetings for the Steelers’ roster following the 2022 season.
Player: Devin Bush
Position: ILB
Experience: 4 Years
Will Devin Bush serve as a cautionary tale for the Steelers’ front office going forward? Or will that go out the window with the retirement of Kevin Colbert as general manager? While Omar Khan was there for that pick, he wasn’t really in the personnel end at the time, and assistant general manager Andy Weidl is just coming in as a key personnel man himself.
Trading up 10 spots in the first round to get him, Pittsburgh was committed to upgrading the inside linebacker position after Ryan Shazier’s career-ending injury in 2017. Bush had a promising rookie season and was off to a decent start by the time he suffered a torn ACL in the first half of his second year.
The 2021 season was pretty much a complete failure. We all saw it. He had half a dozen former Steelers players calling him out and talking about how poorly he was playing and how it wasn’t representative of what the team should be about.
He showed modest improvements this past season and even offered some degree of physicality in certain contexts, but he still spun away from plays. There’s a reason that he was virtually benched by the end of the season.
And one had to wonder how much he really minds. At this point, it doesn’t seem like there’s much of any interest on either side to stay together. The general impression has long been that Bush is looking for a fresh start when he hits free agency next month.
But he’ll have to do so on a budget. It’s hard to imagine anybody offering him much more than the veteran minimum, just for a possible shot at starting. Nobody is going to hand him a starting job after the Steelers asked Robert Spillane and then Mark Robinson to play ahead of him.
