Did Steelers do enough to improve their offensive line this offseason?

The Steelers had the worst rushing attack in the league in 2020. Did they do enough to improve their offensive line this offseason?

After the best start in the history of the franchise last season, things fell apart for the Steelers down the stretch. While we would like to be able to throw all of the blame on the running backs, there are several factors that come into play here.

If you recall, these struggles to run the football did not exist early in the season. Through the first five games of the regular season, the Steelers averaged 136.8 rushing yards per game and never had less than 109 yards on the ground in a single contest, according to Pro Football Reference. Yet, over their next 11 games (including the playoffs) Pittsburgh had just one 100-yard rushing contest and averaged a dismal 60.6 rushing yards per game.

This no doubt contributed to the collapse of the team down the stretch after their remarkable 11-0 start. When the Steelers took a lot of Matt Canada’s spark out of the offense in the second half of the season, Pittsburgh’s offense didn’t scare anyone, and it didn’t help that Ben Roethlisberger had a hard time opening things up down the field with his 31st-ranked deep ball completion percentage, according to PlayerProfiler.com.

Despite all of these factors that came into play, the offensive line deserves the brunt of the blame for their lackluster performances in 2020. Art Rooney II and Kevin Colbert continually expressed their need to improve the offensive line this offseason, but did they do enough?

Did Steelers make enough improvements on the OL?

There is more turnover on the offensive line this year than there has been for over a decade. The Steelers lost a mostly washed-up Maurkice Pouncey to retirement, while Matt Feiler inked a deal with the Los Angeles Chargers. Most recently, starting left tackle Alejandro Villanueva signed a two-year contract with the Baltimore Ravens.

While it’s easy to say that these three players were no longer essential or that they were past their primes (which might be true), that doesn’t automatically mean that the Steelers did enough to replace them this offseason.

Center was clearly one of the biggest needs this offseason. Just B.J. Finney and J.C. Hassenauer are under contract, and both players have proved to be no more than reserve options at this point. The Steelers had their pick of the litter in the 2021 NFL Draft. With players like Landon Dickerson, Creed Humphrey, and Quinn Meinerz all on the board, they passed on each player (multiple times for Humphrey and Meinerz), and they didn’t draft an offensive lineman until the third round this year when they took Kendrick Green.

The Steelers certainly needed running back help, but I’m sure the organization has to know that the success of the running game starts up front. The fact that they passed on players like Teven Jenkins and Landon Dickerson in the first round, or made no effort to go up and get Christian Darrisaw (who went just one pick before the Steelers) tells me that they either don’t value the offensive line as much as we’d hoped or they have too much confidence in the linemen already on the team.

Pittsburgh did take just one other offensive lineman with the first of their two fourth-round picks in Texas A&M offensive tackle, Dan Moore Jr. While I don’t dislike the Green pick in the third round or the Moore pick in the fourth, we must question if the Steelers did enough to address the position this offseason.

If I would have told you a few months ago that the Steelers lost three starters on their offensive line this offseason and they only spent a third and a fourth-round pick to replace them, would you have been okay with that? Maybe Pittsburgh found a diamond in the rough with Kendrick Green or Dan Moore Jr., but I was really hoping for some cornerstone offensive line talent early in the NFL Draft this year.