It has been a rather thrilling offseason for the Pittsburgh Steelers under GM Omar Khan, featuring quite an active free agency period, some wheeling and dealing on the trade market, and an outstanding 2024 NFL Draft. All of it helped shape the roster nicely — at least on paper.
One analyst believes that the Steelers are still in that dreaded “in between” zone of not being terrible, but not being a contender.
Appearing on “The Athletic Football Show” Tuesday with host Robert Mays, FOX Sports’ NFC North reporter Carmen Vitali downplayed the Steelers’ offseason quite a bit due to questions she has at quarterback.
“I think I’m selling. I put selling with a question mark because I have no idea, really, what is gonna end up happening because we don’t know what the long-term plan is under center,” Vitali said of the Steelers’ offseason, according to video via the show’s YouTube page. “You have two quarterbacks that have one-year deals. You have Russell Wilson, who’s playing on league minimum, but he very much has incentive to play well this year so he can prove that he is in for another deal while Denver keeps paying him.
“And then you have Justin Fields, who was a starter. Is he actually a starter? That’s the question.”
Selling on the Steelers’ offseason because you aren’t sure of their long-term plan because of two quarterbacks seems like a bit of a cop-out from Vitali.
Of course you don’t know what’s going to happen long-term, but that doesn’t mean you can’t judge what the Steelers did this offseason under Khan, which includes the acquisition of the two quarterbacks relatively cheap.
After going through Kenny Pickett, Mitch Trubisky and Mason Rudolph the last two seasons, the Steelers appear to be much better off with Wilson and Fields, at least on paper. The Steelers are very much in win-now mode with a star-studded defense, so getting two capable quarterbacks and letting competition sort things out was the right play from Khan and Co.
But both Vitali and Mays wondered if the Steelers were operating like they were two years away by going cheap at the quarterback position.
“That is what I was grappling with most when it came to this team because I’m like, ‘Are you guys thinking two years ahead, essentially?'” Vitali said. “You’re in the last year of Mike Tomlin’s contract. But I don’t necessarily think that means very much because this is one of the most stable franchises. They don’t make rash decisions. Also, Tomlin has never had a losing season as we know. So are you thinking like, ‘All right, just get through this season, figure out if you have someone in Russ that you wanna re-sign or can you develop Justin Fields and have him boomerang back into a starting job and you’re kind of thinking ahead towards 2025?’
“Because if that’s the case, I think it kind of makes a little bit more sense to what they’re doing.”
It seems like a bit of stretch to say that the Steelers, who are trying to win every single season and have the Lombardi Trophy as the ultimate goal every single year, are now somehow trying to plan for two years in advance, especially considering how quickly things can change across the NFL landscape.
Signing Wilson was a win-now move. Trading for Fields and letting him compete for the starting job was a win-now move. So, too, was the signing of Patrick Queen, DeShon Elliott and more in free agency, and trading for veteran cornerback Donte Jackson.
Yes, the Steelers have nailed the draft the last two years and yes, they are a relatively young team, especially offensively. But they aren’t looking at the 2024 season as a building year. They want to hit the ground running immediately and try to win a Super Bowl.
That’s the goal. That’s how the Steelers operate.
Mays knows this. He’s been around a long time covering the NFL, but even he couldn’t get past the thought that the Steelers might be operating from a two-years-ahead standpoint. That thought has Mays believing the Steelers are running in place.
“The Pittsburgh Steelers are running in place a little bit. I’m willing to concede that, even if I can get behind a lot of the things that they did [this offseason],” Mays said.
The only running the Steelers are going to be trying to do in 2024 is attempting to run over and through defenses behind a physical rushing attack.
