The Steelers are now back at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, facing down a long regular season that looks a lot more promising given how things have gone leading up to it. Finishing just above .500 last year, they anticipate being able to compete with any team in the league this season with second-year QB Kenny Pickett leading the way.
They’ve done a great deal to address what they identified as their shortcomings during the offseason, which included addressing the offensive and defensive lines as well as the secondary and the inside linebacker room, which is nearly entirely different from last year. The results have been positive so far.
Even well into the regular season and beyond, there are going to be plenty of questions that need answered. When will the core rookies get to play, or even start? Is the depth sufficient where they upgraded? Can they stand toe-to-toe with the Bengals and the other top teams in the league? We’ll try to frame the conversation in relevant ways as long as you stick with us throughout the season, as we have for many years.
Question: What did the Steelers get right or wrong with their initial 53-man roster?
For our purposes, we will include yesterday’s transactions in the “initial” part of the roster, since the Steelers never intended for two punters to be a part of their team. So they get a little bonus by including CB Desmond King.
So the Steelers chopped the roster down from 90 to 53. Did they make the right decisions working with what they had? Which parts of the roster did they nail, at least among those that were actually up for debate? Where do you think they should have done things differently?
Generally speaking, there are always about 43 or more spots on a 53-man roster that are safe to project, that nobody is going to get wrong. In some years it could be higher, upwards of 50, more typically in the range of 47. Going lower than 43 probably rests primarily on teams going through regime changes.
In other words, there isn’t necessarily a ton of guesswork involved, but the final 15-25 percent of the team is where the variables lie. Within that window of the Steelers’ initial 53-man roster, there are multiple directions they could have gone.
The most notable area was the offensive line, trading Kevin Dotson and Kendrick Green and opting instead to retain rookie/first-year players Spencer Anderson and Dylan Cook. Another significant decision was the retention of seven defensive linemen, with NT Breiden Fehoko on the outside looking in (though he was re-signed to the practice squad after clearing waivers).
One interesting part of the roster is the linebackers, where they’ve only kept eight players. They parted with veterans on the inside in Tanner Muse and Nick Kwiatkoski, the former claimed off waivers. The latter is reportedly expected to sign to the practice squad, but many predicted Muse would make the team as the fifth inside linebacker.
We must also mention that the Steelers currently have 11 defensive backs with the addition of King. Will that number stay there, or might somebody like James Pierre or perhaps Elijah Riley lose their spot? And the team kept WR Gunner Olszewski. Will he have a role in the return game? Will he dress on Sundays as the sixth wide receiver? Should they have kept TE Zach Gentry?
