A little more than a week ago, the Steelers were a salary cap-strapped team and had some holes that needed to be filled and might have some difficulty in doing so. How much of the roster would need to be gutted to make room under the cap and franchise tag Bud Dupree was a pressing question.
Here we sit March 23, and the Steelers have addressed most of their glaring needs, have kept the most important pieces of their roster intact and were able to fit Dupree easily under the cap. And they still have about $4 million more under the cap to play with if they feel the need to do some more adding.
This is just the latest example of why Kevin Colbert, Omar Khan and the Steelers front office are the best in the business. There is no front office that seems to be able to squeeze more out of their salary cap almost every single year. I'm amazed at what the Steelers did last week, to be honest, and now have a much different opinion of what the season might look like.
What did the Steelers need to do to make it all work? Restructure some of their most expensive contracts, allow a number of mostly reserve free agents to leave, have Ramon Foster retire (instead of getting cut) and then cut Mark Barron, Anthony Chickillo and Johnny Holton.
That enabled the Steelers to have enough cap room to franchise tag Dupree at a cost of about $16 million in 2020. They were able to hold onto Zach Banner, who will compete for a tackle spot, Kameron Canaday and Mike Hilton. They also didn't have to cut Vance McDonald, who is at a position of need, or Alejandro Villanueva, the starting left tackle.
All of that stuff was somewhat expected, but the Steelers weren't done as they went out and signed veteran guard Stefen Wisniewski, tight end Eric Ebron and fullback Derek Watt. And then they traded a late-round pick to the Ravens for defensive lineman Chris Wormley.
I have no idea if any of these players will work out, and that's probably a different discussion for a different day. We have seen examples in recent years _ Donte Moncrief and Ladarius Green come to mind _ of free agents not working out. Colbert has had mostly a good track record of talent acquisition, but he has also made some high profile mistakes.
But I think all four of the new players can contribute, and in the case of Ebron, perhaps in a big way. He is the most intriguing of the acquisitions because of his upside. He has been mostly an underwhelming player in terms of production for most of his career, but he has shown flashes. He had a big year in 2018 and showed that he has the ability to be a reliable pass-catching tight end with the ability to make big plays.
The hope is that, with a healthy Ben Roethlisberger, and McDonald on the other side, Ebron will have a bounce-back season after an injury-plagued 2019. Roethlisberger is obviously the key to it all, but now he has another weapon who could become a major part of the offense.
He is the kind of low risk, high reward player the Steelers needed to take a chance on. And I think the combination of Ebron and Watt, along with the addition of Matt Canada to the coaching staff, would suggest that this is going to be a different offense than the one we saw with Roethlisberger in 2018. We could see a better running game and a bigger commitment to running the ball, and that's a good thing.
The Steelers looked like a team that needed help but wouldn't be able to afford it. But that doesn't appear to be the case now. We can debate the how good or bad Colbert's drafts have been, but nobody can argue that he isn't excellent at manipulating the Steelers' payroll, and that is one of the most important traits a general manager can have.
