I’m oddly excited as a Steelers fan – their draft this year was amazing. Not only did they cover positions of need extremely well, everyone they drafted were high character/leadership/blue collar types. The past 5 years have been weird because the team kept inching towards everything that makes it hard for me to like football. Rapey Ben, James Harrison’s head hunting, the “Young Money” crew lead by Mike Wallace, character-concern draft picks like Mike Adams, etc etc. Ben’s still around, but most of the trouble types are gone, and the emphasis in the draft was to work hard and not be a money-hungry bastard.
Plus, the O-Line is finally, finally not going to completely suck (if they can stop falling on each other, we just lost an UDFA for the year due to this, who looked like a legit backup). Last year was a transition into a more modern blocking scheme under the new offensive coordinator, and Ben and Heath put up career numbers until they got hurt. What really hurt was not having a decent run-game, but Le’Veon Bell is making a ton of noise in camp: he catches everything thrown at him, he constantly makes smart reads, he’s nearly impossible to block. If he can do that in a game situation, he will be one of those key pieces to getting the team back to contending. And all signs are that Markus Wheaton might be our #3 receiver, which would be pretty incredible – our offense would be faster, more dynamic, will keep Ben upright more, and we won’t miss Wallace at all.
And everyone laughs at how old the D is, but that’s just because they’re experienced, they were still one of the top D’s last year. With the new linebackers coming in, we’re a year or two away from having the best linebacking corps in the NFL. Safety is still thin, but Sharknado Thomas looks like the real deal, and Sean Spence is now expected to recover, so Troy’s (imminent) retirement won’t sting so bad. And the secondary is also FINALLY starting to improve, especially in terms of depth, but we’re still a few injuries away from being picked apart by the better QB’s. A lot of the newcomers are supposedly ballhawks, which we’ve been missing for a few years, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
And the special teams are still… special. We’ve collected a lot of high ceiling UDFAs and castoffs from other teams, but I’d be surprised if any of them will make impact. My hope for the year is for them to be competent, not fumble, and tackle. That’s it.
With that said, it’s still a transition year. 10 wins seems doable, maybe even a mild playoff run, but I think we’re a year or two away from being contenders again. I’m mostly excited because the offense finally has the toys it needs to work (well, we still suck at TE without Heath, who’s out till December IIRC), and there’s a lot of high-upside players from the last few drafts who might finally get a chance to start. And if only a couple of our recent defensive picks reach their potential, we’re going to (once again) have an elite defense that makes big, crazy plays – although that’s realistically a year or two down the road.
Lacy and Franklin both look really intriguing so far I have to say.