Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Elandon Roberts brings a lot of winning experience to the team, having previously won two Super Bowls with the New England Patriots. Roberts was a guest on former Steelers’ LB Arthur Moats’ podcast this week, and he talked about why he feels like the foundation currently in Pittsburgh is similar to those Super Bowl-winning teams he had in New England.
“I just learned that from being in New England, we didn’t have the best talent, but we had the best foundation. And when you look at us over here at Pittsburgh, and why I chose it is because the foundation is here and the talent is here, you know, but you just have to take them strides and put it together. Once them strides come together, it’s gonna be like, whoa, where did these guys come from? And stuff like that, it takes time,” Roberts said via The Arthur Moats Experience on YouTube.
It’s going to take time for this Steelers team to fully mesh together, with so many new faces on the team and especially on the defensive side of the ball. It’s been ugly in the early going, but there are a lot of issues that are happening now, particularly when it comes to communication, that won’t be happening by Week Eight or Week Nine. If those issues continue to persist, then the Steelers are basically screwed.
But with a veteran core on defense, I don’t foresee those types of issues continuing to happen. The team is going to gel eventually. While they might not be the Super Bowl-caliber teams that Roberts played on in New England (those teams had Tom Brady, after all) the Steelers have the talent to be a playoff team.
They haven’t shown that talent so far. They’ve struggled on offense, they can’t stop the run and their coverage has been suspect. It hasn’t been a pretty start to the season, and yet, the Steelers are still 1-1. When they start to gel and adjust and get better as a unit, then maybe Roberts is right and people will wonder where the heck they came from.
Getting Cameron Heyward back later in the season is going to be important too, as that’ll add another veteran presence to a defense that has a few of them. If they can shore up the run defense, the defense will be fine.
Offensively, the Steelers have issues. The run game has struggled due to poor offensive line play, and Kenny Pickett has been inaccurate and struggled with his decision-making. The play-calling hasn’t been great either, but the execution needs to improve, across the board. If the Steelers can’t execute, the foundation they’ve built simply won’t matter.
They have the talent and the head coach in place to be a good team, but they just haven’t looked right on the field so far. Hopefully, that’s going to change going forward, and that foundation and talent can start to translate to wins on the field.
Watch the full interview below:
