Steelers News: Rooney, Offseason, Steeler Nation
By Kim Myers
The Steelers players head into the offseason for recovery and the coaches head out to prepare for free agency and the draft.
Steelers season never truly ends for Steeler Nation so while the offseason starts to heat up we’ll be busy looking for mentions of your Black & Gold so we’ve got you covered. Here’s your Steelers Morning Huddle for Tuesday, Feb. 2nd.
Some mistakes, obviously
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Steelers president Art Rooney II made it clear that the team has to address the issues in the secondary this offseason.
the reasons why it’s tough to believe that one offseason can turn this secondary around.
The mistakes made by the front office and coaching staff when it comes to the secondary are hard to ignore. There’s the fact that they have not drafted a Pro Bowl cornerback since Rod Woodson. There’s also the fact that they drafted three corners last offseason but none say regular season playing time.
There’s the fact that they traded a third round draft pick for safety Shamarko Thomas, who has been slower than the travel time to the tunnels on the Parkway to develop into a starting player. There’s also the albatross of a contract they signed Cortez Allen to in the summer of 2014.
Let’s just be cautiously optimistic, ok?
Offseason timeline
We have a long way ahead of us, Steeler Nation. We have six long months before the Steelers will check into the dorms at Saint Vincent College. To get us through to that point ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler gives us a timeline of the processes the team will go through this offseason.
February 22nd is the first day teams are permitted to use the franchise tag on players and Fowler says we can ignore this date as the Steelers don’t have any players that are candidates for tags. The NFL Scouting combine is the same weekend and Fowler reminds us that free agency plans with the in-house Steelers free agents will begin around this time.
The Steelers can start negotiating with their free agents on March 12th and also in March we can expect to see some contract restructuring with contract extensions likely to be offered to players like David DeCastro and Le’Veon Bell sometime before camp opens.
That’s a little creepy
Steelers fans who were born nine months after the Steelers’ Super Bowl X win in 1976 were part of a new Super Bowl 50 commercial for the NFL.
Next: Steelers: Offensive Line Questions
The commercial features Seal as well as “Super Bowl Babies” or babies born in Super Bowl winning cities around nine months after the big game. So that’s awesome. And a little creepy.