Cornerback
While some might argue that Alejandro Villanueva wasn’t very good and that the team actually improved the offensive tackle position this offseason, the feeling about the cornerback position should be unanimous. I’d love to see how some blindly optimistic fan could spin this to make it sound like the Steelers cornerback room is more talented in 2021.
Pittsburgh lost two quality cornerbacks this offseason in Steven Nelson and Mike Hilton, while Justin Layne is on thin ice after his offseason arrest. Right now, the team has just two cornerbacks with any sort of notable experience in Joe Haden and Cameron Sutton. At age 32, Haden’s play could start to drop off quickly, while Sutton is still very much unproven in a full-time role.
The depth at the cornerback position, on paper, is worse than it has been in years, as there isn’t a single notable player coming off the bench in nickel or dime packages. Steelers fans have a lot of confidence in last year’s undrafted rookie James Pierre, but the young cornerback has just 27 career regular-season snaps under his belt. Meanwhile, the last two cornerback positions could even be filled by a couple of undrafted rookies this year – which tells you all you need to know about how scary the depth is on this team. It’s clearly worse than it was last year.