Welcome back to your weekly Pittsburgh Steelers mailbag. As always, we’re here for the next hour to answer whatever is on your mind.
To your questions!
Banastre Tarleton: Removing anything Rodgers, what should be (not necessarily will be) the biggest storyline leading up to camp?
Alex: Leading up to camp as in, nothing before the team reports? Probably a tie between the Watt contract and if the Steelers add an offensive playmaker. Will Watt get his deal done before reporting? If so, what does it look like? More than Garrett? If it doesn’t happen, what’s his posture for camp and assuming he goes to Latrobe, what does he tell reporters?
And then we’ll see if Pittsburgh can add a playmaker to the offense be it sign or trade. You’d think WR Gabe Davis will be cleared and healthy by then.
Banastre Tarleton: One more, Alex! Choose one non-Pro Bowl player from each AFC North team you would like to see on the Steelers if you could snap your fingers and make it happen.
Alex: Always a fun question and like the non Pro Bowl twist. I’ll go with (and work under the assumption a player who has never made the Pro Bowl at any part of their career, I’ll also take rookies off the table).
Browns – OT Dawand Jones. Some risk with him but he’s gotten his weight down and still has lots of potential. Need tackle depth and he could push Broderick Jones. Browns don’t give me a lot of options to choose from so I’ll take the best non Pro Bowl offensive lineman still on a cheap rookie deal.
Bengals – Give me NT BJ Hill. He’s older but a rock solid plugger in the middle of that defense with a little bit of pass rush juice. At least three sacks in each of his last four years. Adding him would give Pittsburgh a seriously strong defensive line top to bottom.
Ravens – WR Rashod Bateman. Breakout year in 2024. Might not be the most consistent player but he’s a big play guy and clear No. 2 receiver in the Steelers’ offense. With Zay Flowers making the Pro Bowl last year, the first Ravens WR to do so I think in forever, I’ll go Bateman narrowly over TE Isaiah Likely.
Sam S: Year after year we hear about the communication problems being the downfall of the Steelers defense. We have Minkah, tj and cam. I know we have had some turnover at the ILB position/green dot and I’m not downplaying the importance of communication as it relates to success/failure but at this point I think I would prefer the defense to say my dog ate my playbook. It’s year after year this excuse. Apparently, it’s no secret among the entire league that the Steelers run a very vanilla defense. Not even sure what my question is — maybe more of a pet peeve but just really tired of communication being the issue time after time when the defense comes up short. With recent interview with Joey Porter on cam’s podcast to Joey’s point maybe more an issue of player on player accountability
Alex: Fair points and I hear you. Communication issues are grating. I imagine if you/I were a fan of any other team, we’d be hearing the same thing a lot, too. Most defenses fail because of communication breakdowns. Offenses are designed with the goal of stressing communications and the more open/pass-heavy attacks have only increased that.
I think the most frustrating element is the point you touched on. Pittsburgh has a relatively “simple” scheme designed so players can play fast and free without overthinking. They don’t want players to be burdened by having so many rules to follow. So they shouldn’t have all these communication problems for a system that is supposed to make it “easy” on them.
Hopefully, after last year’s issues and the offseason’s coaching change to bring in (bring back, really) Gerald Alexander, things get cleaned up.
