When free agency rolls around, I often cringe at the thought that the Pittsburgh Steelers will sign a player that we could have drafted or that the front office will allow a quality player to walk—one that they either drafted or signed as a free agent out of college, and who contributed and could have continued to contribute if given the opportunity.
The realization that the team will invariably look different year to year is life in the modern NFL. Players come and go, but there was a time when the Steelers built championship teams through the draft.
Not to say that they don't have players we drafted who have seen multiple contracts, but conversely, there are several examples of the opposite.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have had to rely on free agency to make up for questionable drafting
Before we delve much further into our conversation, allow me to take a stroll down memory lane, as it will provide context for the remainder of the discussion. My Steelers journey began in the 1970s. They famously won four Super Bowls over the span of six years by doing one thing extremely well and better than most other organizations.
If you look at the rosters of the four Super Bowl teams of the 1970s, you will undoubtedly notice that the vast majority of the players were drafted by the Steelers. Of course, there were some notable exceptions. Ray Mansfield, Donnie Shell, and Randy Grossman come to mind, but again, the majority of our players arrived via the draft.
The Steelers were exceptional at times in identifying and drafting players who made an immediate impact. The draft class of 1974 was legendary not only for the Steelers organization but for the NFL as a whole. Pittsburgh selected four future Hall of Famers in a single draft. That feat has yet to be repeated and may never be repeated in my lifetime.
Before free agency became the spectacle it is today, if they lost a player for whatever reason, the Steelers would generally be able to replace that player and the level of play they provided through the draft. I do not believe that is the case today.
What I believe is happening today is that the Steelers are relying, to a large degree, on signing free agents because we simply have not drafted well enough to keep our players.
In other words, many former Steelers draft picks sign elsewhere in free agency, without seeing a second contract in Pittsburgh.
Case in point is Connor Heyward, who signed a deal with the Las Vegas Raiders. What that means is that no player from the 2022 draft class saw a second contract with Pittsburgh. To take it a step further, two players from that draft class, Kenny Pickett and George Pickens, were traded after having played for Pittsburgh for two and three seasons, respectively.
While the 2022 draft class is not on Omar Khan, per se, he was a member of the front office under Kevin Colbert. I suspect he had some involvement in the draft. However, it goes without saying that Colbert's final five drafts set the team back. And there's no question that former head coach Mike Tomlin was intimately involved in the draft process—particularly late in his career.
To be fair, I recall some very questionable and downright poor draft classes engineered under Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher, but for this discussion, that is ancient history.
If you look at the moves the Steelers have made in free agency, it's a mixed bag of re-signing some of their own players, trading for a player, Michael Pittman, Jr., and the obligatory signing of free agents who were drafted by other teams.
Unfortunately, this is the fate that has befallen the Steelers. On paper, I could argue that they improved the roster by signing the players they did and trading for Pittman, Jr.; however, it would be a moot point, since we haven't seen any of these players in live action as Pittsburgh Steelers.
I will close with this: the Steelers are a storied franchise, rich in tradition, splendor, and achievements. It would appear to me that over the nearly five decades that I have been watching football and being a Steelers fan, they have lost the innate ability to build a roster through the one means that is ultimately cost-effective and, I would argue, produces the best results. It is none other than the NFL draft.