Pittsburgh Steelers
– Strengthen secondary
– Address the future of the quarterback position
The Pittsburgh Steelers will need to improve on an overall weak secondary, and they’ll soon get their opportunity as free agency opens up in a little less than a month and the draft will shortly follow. They don’t have defensive guru Dick LeBeau around to develop talent anymore, but still have a quality staff that can draft the bandaid for their defensive backfield.
More importantly than the future of their secondary is the future of their quarterback position, which is currently a little cloudy past 2015. Ben Roethlisberger is locked in through this season and will be a free agent in 2016, but would it be worth it to sign him to another deal now before the season starts? Probably not, as anything can happen between Week 1 and Week 17, and they’d be kicking themselves if he came in game one and tore an ACL after signing another $100 million contract.
While re-signing Roethlisberger sounds pretty smart, the organization has to decide if he’s worth another long-term contract or if they should start making moves for the future. If we were the front office of Pittsburgh, we’d draft a promising quarterback in the early rounds of the draft that looks like he’ll be ready sooner than later, then let him sit behind Big Ben for 2015 and soak up as much knowledge as he can. After the season, decide on Ben’s contract and see if he’s worth the trouble. If not, cut ties. If so, bring him back and let the youngster sit for a bit longer. Either way, the team would have a clearer answer than they do now.