After last season, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said the Steelers were a “team on the rise” toward the end of the year, and their record proved it despite falling short of the postseason. After a successful offseason, the first at the helm for general manager Omar Khan, NFL.com has taken some of Tomlin’s verbiage, dubbing the Steelers as one of ten teams with a roster “on the rise” heading into 2023.
“I view the Steelers as an under-the-radar heavy in the AFC. They found Kenny Pickett’s new left tackle in first-rounder Broderick Jones out of Georgia — Pittsburgh hadn’t snatched a first-round bookend since Jamain Stephens in 1996. I adore the Steelers grabbing cover man Joey Porter Jr. with their next pick. The son of a franchise fire-starter, Porter belonged in Pittsburgh and pairs nicely with free-agent pickup Patrick Peterson,” Marc Sessler wrote.
That doesn’t even mention Pittsburgh’s addition of Isaac Seumalo in free agency, which was arguably their biggest move of the entire offseason. The Steelers’ offseason has garnered a lot of praise from both local and national media, and now it’s time for the team to put it all together on the field. Jones and Seumalo should anchor the left side of Pittsburgh’s line, strengthening the two biggest weak spots from the O-Line last season.
The improved offensive line will bolster the run game, while defensively the Steelers replaced their inside linebacker group and added Cole Holcomb and Elandon Roberts, who are expected to start. They also made changes at cornerback, with Patrick Peterson replacing Cameron Sutton and the team adding two big, physical corners in the draft in Porter Jr. and Cory Trice Jr.
There’s no doubt that the Steelers got better this offseason, and their roster is improved. It might be one of their best in years. But they play in one of the toughest divisions in football, and Pickett, while still developing, still isn’t an upper-echelon quarterback yet. Now, with Allen Robinson II and Calvin Austin III in the fold, maybe the playbook will open up, route trees will expand, and more weapons could make Pickett develop into one of the better quarterbacks in the league, but he isn’t there yet.
He’s clutch, and he’s a quarterback you can win with, as he showed by leading two game-winning drives late in the season last year and helping the team finish the year with a winning record. But now it’s time for him to show that he can get a team into the playoffs.
That’s the goal for this year’s team. They need to show they can get in the playoffs and be competitive and maybe make a run. The standard isn’t a playoff appearance, it’s a Super Bowl, but for the 2023 Steelers, they need to show us that they can make the playoffs and truly be a team on the rise around that part of the season with their current roster talent.
If they can’t, questions are going to arise and some jobs may become available this offseason.
