The Steelers weren’t expected to have a huge free agency, but the early portion of the new league year has been brutal so far.
Free agency is never an active time for the Steelers, as they opt for the underrated retain your own players and make cheap signings while bolstering through the draft. There was little question that the Steelers would take a similar strategy this year, but it has seemingly been to no avail. Credit where credit is due, the Zach Banner and Cameron Sutton re-signings look good, but the talent that has left will be almost impossible to overcome.
Despite Ben Roethlisberger freeing up cap space for one last ride, this team appears to be rebuilding, not competing. Here are the reasons the Steelers have failed the early portion of free agency.
Where are the deal(s) at?
Again, expectations were relatively low that the Steelers would be big players in free agency. With limited cap space, the team was going to have to do the most with less. That said, they got some surprising extra relief when Roethlisberger took a pay cut in his foe extension. It seemed like Stephon Tuitt would have his contract restructured next, and based on his recent comments, an extension for Steven Nelson could be in the works as well to free up cap space.
Unfortunately, nothing has come to fruition on any of these cap-saving moves, and the Steelers have watched some talent already accept deals elsewhere. Again, the top-level talent was going to leave, but some of the older and cheaper options were realistic re-signs. Had the team done more to create more cap space, some of the recent departures could have been brought back. Now, the team seems void of talent, and these cost-saving measures may go to waste because of it.
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.
Losing Alualu
Had anyone told me last year that I would be mourning the loss of an elderly nose tackle in Tyson Alualu, I would have laughed at them. Alualu was coming off a fine season, but with him attempting to switch positions as well as his age, losing him wouldn’t have seemed like a huge deal. Then he actually played in 2020, and he easily had the best season of his career.
Alualu may have only played 44 percent of the defensive snaps, but when on the field he was the best run-stopper along the defensive line. While his play did decline after he was injured, he was still playing at a level most thought he wouldn’t. Alualu transitioned roles seamlessly, and it made the Steelers defense as dominant as it was at the beginning of the season. While rookie Carlos Davis flashed some potential, he has a long way to go before being counted on being a starter.
Worse yet, Alualu is only set to count for 2.3 million against the Jaguars cap in 2021. While regression is a risk at his age, all signs from his 2020 season indicate that he will provide a great run-stopping presence to this line. His charge wasn’t extremely expensive, and given the Steelers still had ways to create cap space, losing Alualu is extremely disappointing.
Losing Hilton
Just to be clear, I wasn’t expecting the Steelers to re-sign Mike Hilton this year. This isn’t due to his talent, as he is a great player, but I expected his cost to be closer to the 8-10 million dollars per year range. In the end, he signed with the Bengals for only 6 million a year. At that price, it is surprising that the team didn’t make a significant push to try and retain Hilton.
Had Hilton signed a deal for similar money with the Steelers, he would have had a first-year cap hit of only 2.5 million dollars. That could have fit under the cap easily with a Tuitt restructure or a Williams release or the team could have opted to keep Sutton over Hilton straight up. That isn’t to say the Sutton deal is bad in hindsight, but Hilton is the superior slot option (Sutton has the leg up as he can play the outside).
Knowing now that Hilton was going to be that cheap, it would have made a lot of sense for the Steelers to retain both of these players. It would have kept the group deep for one more year as well as giving the team option after next season. Odds are, Joe Haden will not be on the roster a year from now, so having Hilton in the slot and Sutton ready for the outside would have been relieving. Again, his contract came in under what most thought it would, but the Steelers really needed to make a stronger push for Hilton.
While the three moves the Steelers have made in free agency have been solid, overall, the early results were less than favorable. The team didn’t need to sign a top free agent or bring back all of their departing players but allowing some of those middle-tier guys to go will hurt next season. The team certainly has a long way to go if they want to be a competitor in 2021.