5 best moves of the Pittsburgh Steelers 2021 offseason

The Pittsburgh Steelers had an eventful offseason, but here are the five best moves they made so far in 2021. 

In a year with so much uncertainty regarding quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and with virtually no money to work with, we knew the Pittsburgh Steelers weren’t exactly going to own the offseason in 2021. Over a month after the season concluded, we were still waiting to see if the Steelers would be willing to work with Ben or if they would finally agree that it was time to move on.

Losing some key players this offseason was inevitable, and there really isn’t anything that Pittsburgh could have done to prevent a player like Bud Dupree from signing a lucrative new deal with an outside organization. Still, despite all the players they lost, the Steelers made some quality moves this offseason. Here are the five best moves they made so far in 2021:

5. Reworking Ben Roethlisberger’s contract

This one could be both good and bad – depending on how you look at it. If you really don’t believe that Ben Roethlisberger is capable of winning a Super Bowl in his old age, then what is the sense of bringing him back? However, if there’s even a glimmer of hope (and Pittsburgh believes there is), then he couldn’t be returning on a more reasonable deal.

Ben was set to have the largest cap hit in the entire NFL in 2021 prior to reworking his deal to stick around for another season. Though he still has a cap number of $25.9 million this year, according to Over the Cap, this is substantially lower than the $41.25 million he previously had.

Roethlisberger was willing to take a big pay cut to stick around. Though Pittsburgh was forced to give him a voidable-year contract that will force them to eat $10.3 million in cap space next year, bringing Big Ben back for one more round could prove to be worth it.