Buy Or Sell: The Steelers have no good options at quarterback available this offseason.
Explanation: A year after turning over their quarterback room, the Steelers are sifting through the rubble. Both Russell Wilson and Justin Fields played significant snaps for them last season, with clear plusses and minuses. With both set to hit free agency, but neither a clear solution, the Steelers have to figure out if they have an answer on the roster or whether they have to look elsewhere. And even if they do, many regard this year’s quarterback options to be weak.
Buy:
The Steelers will be no closer to competing for a Super Bowl in 2025 because they don’t have the resources. Rather, the resources are not even available that would enable a team to transform instantly into a contender. That transformative resource is a franchise quarterback, and unless you already have one, you’re not getting one in 2025.
Sure, Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward will be off the board in the top few picks in the draft. Chances are somebody will go with Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rodgers. Sam Darnold will surely start somewhere. But will anybody ever win a Super Bowl with any of them as their starter? Rodgers claimed his Super Bowl going on 15 years ago against the Steelers. No, all they have are Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, and that’s not good enough.
Sell:
Let’s start by considering what a “good” option is. Simply put, a quarterback that will win a Super Bowl is too high a standard, because that would eliminate somebody like Dan Marino, who was obviously a good option at quarterback. But the Steelers passed on him half a lifetime ago and he isn’t coming back.
That doesn’t mean the Steelers don’t have options, though. Let’s not forget, for starters, that they were 10-3 with Justin Fields going 4-2. Russell Wilson started out 6-1 before things went awry. Put a better team around them, including internal growth on the offensive line, and things look much better.
This conversation also doesn’t limit the results to 2025, so we could be talking about the draft. Even if the Steelers don’t trade up for a favorite, that doesn’t mean they can’t draft and develop a quarterback. There are reports circulating suggesting they want to take that route. But that obviously means we won’t know the answer any time soon. Still, just because draft pundits in January say a class is weak doesn’t mean there isn’t a good starting quarterback.
With the Steelers’ 2024 season in the rearview mirror following a disappointing year that came up short in the playoffs once again, it’s time to start asking more questions. Questions about the team’s future in 2025 and beyond. Questions about The Standard.
The rookie class of a year ago was on the whole impressive, but they need to step up into staple starters in 2025, and they need everyone healthy to do it. They needed a strong influx of talent in both free agency and in the 2024 NFL draft yet again. In addition to a revisitation of the coaching staff.
These sorts of uncertainties are what I will look to address in our Buy or Sell series. In each installment, I will introduce a topic statement and weigh some of the arguments for either buying it (meaning that you agree with it or expect it to be true) or selling it (meaning you disagree with it or expect it to be false).