One reason Steelers should not be big spenders in free agency

As we approach the start of free agency, the Steelers have several needs to address but should not become ‘big spenders’ for one simple reason 

This time of the year always reminds me of how the Steelers operated under Plan B Free Agency.  For those of you who were not around during that time, consider yourself lucky.  It was a dark time to be a Steelers fan as we invariably lost some of our best players simply because we could not or maybe did not want to match the offer from the other team.

Fast forward to today where we find ourselves in something of a conundrum.  We have several needs to address at key positions with not a whole lot of draft capital to speak of; however, for the first time in as long as I can remember, the Steelers will be aflush with salary-cap space.

When I say aflush with salary-cap space, I certainly don’t mean that the Steelers will have an infinite supply of dollars to spend; No team does.  By all accounts, we will have approximately twenty-nine million dollars with which to work, not counting any other moves we may make in the interim.

The Steelers would be better served by prioritizing the re-signing of our own free agents

The amount of salary-cap dollars is more than some teams will have but less than other teams will have.  Nonetheless, I think we need to prioritize re-signing our own free agents for one simple reason:  Our pending free agents are our pending free agents.

In other words, these are players who were either drafted by us or were signed as free agents, which, by default, means that we wanted them to play for us when we signed them.  The other benefit, in my opinion, is that re-signing our own free agents would probably be less costly than trying to sign a free agent from another team.

I obviously don’t know for a fact that would be the case, but I suspect it would be the case.  Regardless, I don’t think it would be in our best interest to get into a bidding war for a free agent who is not one of our own.

Let’s take Joe Haden, for example, who will be a free agent once the new NFL officially begins.  Haden has been with us since the 2017 season, has started every game in which he has played sans one game, and has been not only productive but has provided the veteran presence that the Steelers value.

Will we be able to re-sign him?  Would he want to re-sign with us?  These are questions that will be answered shortly.  The question for me is this:  Do the Steelers want to try to re-sign a cornerback, which is a position of need, who knows our defensive scheme, or do we want to possibly spend more to sign a cornerback from another team who may not be familiar with our scheme?

I think the answer is pretty clear and thus the reason the Steelers should not want to be ‘big spenders’ in free agency.  It’s not something we have traditionally done and I don’t think we should start now.