Steelers will focus on these 8 positions once free agency begins
The Steelers have some cap space to work with as they turn their attention to filling some voids on the roster.
The Steelers will come into the season with many different needs that have to be addressed to field a relevant team in 2022. They have some cap space to spend this offseason and it will make free agency a little more interesting than usual. This franchise doesn’t like building their team through outside players in this process, but they won’t have a choice this time around.
If the team wishes to be competitive this upcoming season, then they will have to be creative. Acquiring players from outside the organization then filling out the rest with some quality draft selections. It is entirely possible that this club could stick to their old ways and do little in free agency and then stick to adding players mostly through the draft. Their cap space could expand further if they’d like.
This club currently has about 30 million to work with as they look at different free agents of interest, but that number could jump up. With different restructures and cutting some players, that number could grow another 15 million or more onto their cap space. It seems likely that the team will get more cap space before they start spending when the signing period starts.
There are many different free agents that Pittsburgh could re-sign before they depart for the open market as well. That could eat into the nice amount of cap space that the team is currently seeing. Some big names like Joe Haden, Terrell Edmunds, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and others could be gone by the time free agency begins. Those are all major locker room guys that have been starting for this team for a while now.
It will be a tough challenge for the Steelers to overcome all of these question marks heading into the offseason, but it isn’t impossible. There are certain positions that this team needs to focus on once free agency begins and they will try their best to accomplish that task. The draft will be another major component going forward but this process is the start of the talent acquisition part of the new league year.