WISE ’N’ WARY
The Steelers have never been big spenders in free agency. But ‘winning the offseason’ doesn’t always equate to winning where it counts — on the field.
Don’t expect to see the Steelers making news on ESPN or NFL Network when the free agency period begins next week. They won’t be making splash moves and they won’t be among the teams that analysts exclaim are “winning the offseason” as they break down the many star players changing teams.
In other words, it’s going to be an ordinary March for the Steelers when it comes to signing outside free agents.
The Steelers have a plan every offseason on how to manage their roster. This year presents more challenges due to the pandemic and the lower-than-expected salary cap figure, but they won’t have to stray very far from their usual approach to teambuilding this time of the year.
The Steelers will dabble in free agency as needed to fill some holes on their roster, but they will be measured and careful in their approach — if recent history is any indication, more careful and more measured than any other team in the league, according to the data overthecap.com published last week.
Over the past four years, from 2017-20, the Steelers spent $99.7 million on outside free agents during the spring free-agency period, the lowest amount in the league.
The Steelers also happened to be among the league’s winningest teams in that stretch. They won 42 games over those four seasons. The only teams with more wins were the Patriots (43), Rams (43), Ravens (44), Chiefs (48) and Saints (49).
All of those teams, except for the Saints, were among the teams spending the fewest dollars on outside free agents.
Of the top five highestspending teams in that fouryear period, only the Bills and Browns have developed winning teams in recent years. The others — the Jets, Lions and Jaguars — staggered to losing seasons in most of those years. Of those three, the Jaguars were the only team to make a playoff appearance, and that was in 2017.
The study is affirmation that building through the draft remains the best way to construct a winning team. Identify, select and develop players during their rookie contracts and then re-sign the best of them to second contracts.
It can’t go exactly according to plan this year due to the unforeseen circumstances surrounding the pandemic, but the Steelers remain committed to their method of team-building.
This year’s free-agency period begins March 15, when the legal tampering period begins and agents can negotiate contracts with teams. The official start of free agency begins March 17, the first day of the new league year.
“There’s uncertainty in every season,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. “You just comb through it page by page. And you start, first and foremost, with assessing your in-house things, the state of our team, the depth of our team and the issues relative to personnel with our team. And then we look at our looming potential free agents. I think that is the place we shop first and foremost.”
Tomlin spoke those words a few days after the season ended, but they serve as a reminder about how the Steelers operate this time of the year.
The Steelers have 19 free agents, a larger-than-usual number. If the 2020 season had been normal, the Steelers would have tried to sign a few of those free agents before the season began. But the only player they signed to a contract extension was Cam Heyward.
Receiver JuJu SmithSchuster and outside linebacker Bud Dupree would have been candidates to be re-signed, but with their contracts expiring, they are poised to hit the open market and cash in. SmithSchuster has an estimated
value of $16 million, and Dupree more than $18 million on the open market, according to overthecap.com.
That’s well out of the range for the Steelers, who don’t have the cap space to make competitive offers to them.
General manager Kevin Colbert said this would have been a challenging freeagent class to deal with in a normal year, but the shrinking cap added ever more layers for him to work through as he tries to keep the defending AFC North Division champions competitive.
Nonetheless, there should be enough money to retain a selectfew. Cornerbacks Cam Sutton and Mike Hilton, defensive lineman Tyson Alualu and offensive lineman Zach Banner are among those that could return on reasonable contracts.
“We will try to guesstimate what a certain player may cost us, be it our own player or be it someone else,” Colbert said recently. “And we will always weigh that and measure that against what might be available to us in the draft.
“If a position in the draft is very strong and you feel good about being able to get a player in the draft, that might take you away from signing a free agent or extending your own free agents. I hate to keep saying that, but it’s the truth. We have to continually monitor this and work at it every day because it does actually change daily.”
Last year, the Steelers signed three free agents — tight end Eric Ebron, fullback Derek Watt and guard Stefen Wisniewski. They did not draft a tight end or fullback and waited until the fourth round to select guard Kevin Dotson.
They’re likely to be even less active in free agency this year, but given the lack of depth at the center position in next month’s draft, they could grab one in free agency. They also could be in the market for a tight end again with Vance McDonald retiring and the depth behind Ebron questionable.
There are some other possibilities, but most of the answers will come late next month when draft season rolls around. Until then, Steelers fans will be watching some of their favorite players sign with other teams.