4 ways the Steelers have failed during the early free agency

Cutting Williams

It was a hard pill for Steelers nation to swallow when it was announced that Vince Williams, the team’s inside linebacker for the past eight seasons, was being released. While speculation had been there for a while that he was going to be cut, his actual release came as a shock. The team was cap-compliant and had already lost a slew of former players. With no set deal in place, cutting Williams seems unwise.

The story would be different if the Steelers were in a worse spot cap-wise. Cutting Williams would have been a necessary move in order to free up needed cap space. While the team could certainly use the 4 million in cap space he freed up, it would have made more sense to keep him and execute one of the maneuvers from above. A Tuitt contract restructure would have cleared as much space as cutting Williams and it wouldn’t have left such a hole at inside linebacker.

While Robert Spillane will be penciled in as the next starter, having a trio at the position would have been better than just the two. Williams is still one of the best two-down linebackers in the game, as evident by his impact he had last season. Again, if the cap was in a much dire spot, cutting Williams would have made more sense. The team had other options though, making this release seem even more pointless.