PITTSBURGH _ Despite the uncertainty of Ben Roethlisberger's elbow injury, general manager Kevin Colbert said he feels better about the Steelers heading into the 2020 season than he did at this time a year ago, even though the team was coming off a better statistical record.
But he also said the Steelers have to be "realistic" about how well Roethlisberger, who will be 38 in two weeks, will return from elbow surgery that ended his 2019 season after two games.
"He's a great quarterback that suffered a season-ending injury to his right arm," Colbert said Thursday in a meeting with local media. "Optimistically, he's on schedule to return and we hope he returns to a better Ben Roethlisberger."
Roethlisberger has been meeting routinely with members of the team's medical staff and will go to Los Angeles on Feb. 21 to be evaluated by Dr. Neil ElAttrache, the orthopedic surgeon who performed the surgery on the two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback. At that time, it's possible Roethlisberger can begin some light throwing with a Nerf ball.
"All signs are good at this point," Colbert said. "We're hopeful that he can make a complete recovery and, as of right now, he's on schedule for that. Where it goes from here remains to be seen."
Colbert said he feels better about this team that finished 8-8 than the one that ended the 2018 season with a 9-7-1 record because of the improved defense.
"I think our defense was really good last year and they kept us in a lot of games," Colbert said. "We always talk about when Ben was healthy and we held a team to 21 points, his record is his career is 121-20. When we lost Ben, we knew we had hold to teams to lower than 21 points because we probably weren't going to get 21 points."
Colbert said that was the impetus to trade a first-round pick to acquire safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, whose immediate impact made him a Pro Bowl pick and first-team All-Pro selection.
"Now, with Ben out, we have to hold a team to 17 points, and when we were able to do that, we were 4-0 when Mason Rudolph as the starter," Colbert said. "When Devlin Hodges was the starter, we took it down another notch and we said we got to hold teams to 14 (points) to win, and when we held teams to 14, we were 1-0."
In their final 10 games, the Steelers held their opponent to 16.2 points per game. In that time, only three teams scored more than 21 points. They didn't not allow any team to score more than 28 points after their season-opening loss in New England (33-3).
Conversely, the Steelers averaged only 14.1 points in their final eight games and were the only NFL team to not score at least 30 points in any game last season.
"So, moving forward, I think our defense is better moving into 2020 than our defense was moving into 2019," Colbert said. "I feel optimistic we will have (Roethlisberger) back. And I hope the health will kick back in for James Conner, Vance McDonald and JuJu Smith-Schuster."
Meanwhile, Colbert said he is comfortable with the current crop of backups behind Roethlisberger _ Rudolph, Hodges and Paxton Lynch, a former first-round draft pick who never appeared in a game. The Steelers also signed quarterback J.T. Barrett to the practice squad in late December, primarily to get the Steelers ready in case they faced Lamar Jackson in the season finale in Baltimore.
"I know they're both young players and they can still get better," Colbert said. "We don't want to dismiss Paxton Lynch. Paxton probably hasn't seen the last of what he can do or we haven't seen the best of what he can do. He's got some talent, too. With the three young guys, that's a good group. How we'll feel in August, we'll see, but we're comfortable with them right now."
Because of various injuries to Conner that caused him to miss six games and parts of two others in 2019, Colbert was asked if running back will be a priority for the Steelers in the NFL draft.
Conner finished with 464 yards rushing _ 509 yards fewer than the year before _ which was the first time since 1968 the Steelers' leading rusher had fewer than 500 yards.
"James Conner had a disappointing season in James Conner's viewpoint and ours, as well," Colbert said. "Our point to James was, 'You had an unfortunate year.' The year before that he was one of the best in the league.'
"He's still a young player. We think there's something there. We know there's talent there. We hope James can regain it. And, if he's healthy, there's no reason he shouldn't. We don't want to say we don't have a starting running back because we feel we do."
Then Colbert added, "He suffered different injuries at different times. I don't think that's who James is. I hope we get back to the 2018 James. Where that goes, we'll see. But right now, we're worried about 2020."
Despite being eager to get the 2020 season underway with the start of the NFL combine on Feb. 23, Colbert left no doubt he is unhappy the team missed the postseason for the second year in a row, despite all their injuries to star players.
"We finished 8-8 and that is below the standards that are expected here, the standards we help set," he said. "Whatever we talked about since the end of the season, every decision that we made in 2019 was an 8-8 decision, be it draft picks, be it free agents, be it trades, be it whatever. Any decision ultimately resulted in 8-8, which was not good enough, which means I wasn't good enough, none of us was good enough."
