Steelers might as well go 'all in' on their anti-rebuilding philosophy

For the past several years, I (like many fans) have wanted the Pittsburgh Steelers to wipe the slate clean and get a fresh start after the Ben Roethlisberger era. Instead of trying to naively keep their Super Bowl window cracked open ever so slightly, I was in the camp of tearing down to the studs and rebuilding the foundation of a team in desperate need of a change.

But the time to do that was years ago. We saw the rapid decline of an aging Ben Roethlisberger, but instead of setting themselves up with loads of spending money, the Steelers simply backloaded contracts and kicked the can further down the road.

We are way past that now, and way too far invested in this backward philosophy to turn back now. If this was to happen, it needed to be done in the early years of All-Pro players like T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick; not during the prime of their careers.

Recently, the Steelers showed just how little they care for rebuilding by letting Cameron Sutton leave in free agency and signing a soon-to-be 33-year-old cornerback Patrick Peterson to a two-year deal. Despite their lack of talent outside of Minkah in the secondary, this gives Pittsburgh a mean age of 29 years old at the cornerback position by the start of training camp.

Steelers should sign more veterans who could help now

Mike Tomlin obviously lives year to year, and Omar Khan admitted that he will be a lot like former GM Kevin Colbert in many ways. If this is the case, then we might as well embrace this peculiar anti-rebuild philosophy and go all out with a bunch of old farts right now.

Let me just say that this isn't my preference, and I still don't know how Tomlin expects to get past the cream of the crop in the AFC with this mentality. Still, going full anti-rebuild might give them a better chance at making a Super Bowl run than just keeping their head above water and running it back year after year.

While the offense is still one of the youngest units in the league, the defense now has some players on their last legs in Cameron Heyward and Patrick Peterson. If the goal is to crack this window back open for another year or two (and ignore the consequences down the road), then why not go after some other aging veterans who could give them a boost?

I'm being partially sarcastic here, but you might get my point by now. If the Steelers only care about being competitive from year to year, we might as well embrace the signings of as many aging players as possible and see if Pittsburgh can actually make something happen in the playoffs. We all know it's been long enough since we've seen any success in the postseason.