Will We Be Better Next Season

Duck Hodges could have thrown for over 4500 yards playing for that Alabama team last year

 

Come on ....LoL. You don't believe that.

 

They are a 9-8 team. Retooling, reloading, rebuilding, whatever one chooses to label it, that's where they are. Lost too much on defense. Might be better offensively, but a couple of long term key injuries could relegate them to a 5-12 or 6-11 record. I'm absolutely hoping for the best, but expecting mediocrity.

 

I would argue that having our young WR's (Claypool and Johnson) get another year under their belt should make them better. We will should be very disappointed if Claypool is the same player that he was last season. He should be able to take a step forward in year 2.

OL on paper is worse, but could be something that becomes better as the year progresses. AV and Pouncey performed poorly last year but two unproven guys take the stage in Green and Banner. Dotson should progress in year 2 to be a quality starter. Potential to be same or better, but on paper to start the year it will be slightly worse.

RB needs to be better or we wasted our first round pick

DL should be the same. No reason for it not to be

OLB is worse, but only on paper for now. Hopefully Highsmith can crank it up a notch to be a good player, but Dupree is going to be tough to fully replace. Slightly worse, but potential for same

CB is slightly worse. I would assume that Sutton will perform as well as Nelson, but Haden isnt getting younger. We dont have a proven slot guy yet and may have to rely on a young guy at that position. It worked ok for us when we had to rely on Hilton... hopefully this time around we get a similar result. I feel ok enough about Pierre to be fine with him as top depth. I wouldn't say the sky is falling, but we definitely are a bit worse off

I voted no simply because I believe we will win less than 12 games this year. Our schedule is tougher and on paper we are a slightly worse team IMO. However, this team should compete for a playoff spot no problem. That's not to say we are guaranteed to make the playoffs, but I would say our roster is a playoff caliber roster. It is going to come down to our division games. If we can find a way to go 4-2 or better, we are very likely to be either the North champ or an easy wildcard team. 10-7 or 11-6 is a decent prediction. We just need to get ourselves off to a good start early in the year, because the schedule only gets tougher as the year progresses.

 

I could see us only winning 9 games, but man, look at the rosters of a 5-6 win teams. They are horrid. This team has actually way too much talent to be a 5 win team. For us to be a 5 win team we would have to lose both our top 2 QBs again, as well as Watt and likely half the OL.

 

I think about the only place we can hope addition by subtraction makes them better is OL, and that depends on a 3rd round rookie center (if he can beat out BJ Finney), Okorafor at LT, and a complete unknown in Banner, not to mention hoping DeCastro bounces back at age 31.

Highsmith is ahead of where Bud was after 1 year, but will be surpass where Bud was last year this soon? Who is behind him and TJ for those rotational snaps?

Sean Davis was who he was, but who is the top S behind Minkah and Edmunds now?

Subtractions at CB will leave them the most exposed I'm afraid, and they'll be exploited early and often.

 

Last three teams to pick 13th were 7-9. 6-11 might inch us into the top 10.

 

5 and 6 win teams last year:

Den - No QB, good roster
Dal - Lost QB, good roster
SF - Lost QB, great roster with many more injuries
Car - Avg QB, good roster
NYG - Avg QB, bad roster

 

good question. i say better but it depends on a lot of youth that i think will improve. CB, young but talented. OL, young but talented. OLB, young but talented. ILB young but talented. WR, talented and should get better. DL, we have some young talent as well but how much playing time is yet to be determined. RB, better. TE young but talented mix. safety, good with some talented added. who steps up and how much they step up if at all remains to be seen. we are in a rebuild like it or not. we have added some players that were not full time starters but still could be good fits hopefully. many questions until we see them preform. could give us a nice base to build on.

 

Board is split nearly equal on this question and there are good thoughts on both sides. On game day game 1, I just don't see us as talented as we were starting last season but that doesn't mean we're not competitive or won't have a respectable season. This is a dynamic situation due to the unknowns filling is the positions vacated. This team may trend well but on the edge of a razor. Much said about Ben, OL, RB, CB etc and I think we're ok. Maybe Canada can pull a running game out of this team and overcome what influences that have denied this. What I mean by this is he runs his area of responsibility and MT and BB be damned. The one thing that, without a doubt, will destroy our season will be injuries. Our roster is fragile and it won't take much to break it so lets hope we can have a year without significant personnel issues. I won't say officially what I think we'll end up at the end of the 2021 season and will wait until the proper time when (if) we give predictions.

 

Just when I thought my 6-11 pick was bleak.

 

As I said before the Prediction Poll will be very interesting this season.

I'm not sure if we will field a better team but I am sure this team will not win 12 games. Brutal schedule and I'm sure we will have a few devastating injuries to add to the mix.

 

roche, marsh, jones, watson. those will be the guys behind our starting OLBs.

acey, brooks, denmark, killebrew, maulet, norwood, stiner, wade, and maybe even sutton will be behind minka and edmunds.

we had some pretty talented additions at corner as well, just young.

just because we may have to wait and see who might step up and shine doesn't mean we have nobody to fill in for many of these spots. they are just unknown at this point. even decastro's spot we have players that could step in anywhere along this ol. again we have to wait and see. we can't just write them off before we see what they can do. lot's of talent but it's young talent. it's really not just about this year. it's about building the next phase of the steelers team.

 

Assuming a bunch of late round picks/UDFA's/ will "step up" is a little naive.

 

Yes

 

No

 

Maybe

 

Your point?

@S.T.D was making the point that Harris was successful running out of the shotgun at Alabama and therefore would fit right into our shotgun-happy system. My point was that we don't have the same ability to run, or even pass, out of the shotgun as Alabama. Mac Jones or Duck Hodges makes no difference. That offense was dynamic and capable. Harris won't find the sledding as easy here in Pittsburgh.

 

league statistics show more udfa's make squads at a higher percentage then 3rd through 7th round draft picks. we have had tons of udfa's make this team and become good starters over many years. don't discount them before you see what they can do. everyone can't be a first round pick maddog. only 32 per year. it would take a team 22 years to have a first round pick at every position. the first one picked would be about 44 by then.

we will have 4 on offense this year. 7 on defense. thats over half the starters. 4, 2nd round picks on offense. 1 on defense. that's 16 of our 22 starters are from the first or second round. four 3rds and four 4ths round out the draft pick starters. not many teams have 1st and 2nd rounders sitting at depth.

 

ben #1
harris #1
decastro #1
ebron #1

heyward #1
alualu #1
fitzpatrick #1
edmunds #1
bush #1
haden #1
watt #1

juju #2
claypool #2
friermuth #2
washington #2
tuitt #2


okrafor #3
sutton #3
highsmith #3
green #3

johnson #4
banner #4
moore #4
dotson #4

 

Can we count other teams number 1 picks in this category???

 

why not we went out and got them. they didn't just wonder in to town.

 

Wow It's not who on the bus, it's the driver that gets you where you want to go. Always has, always will.

 

ur naive, there is nothing wrong w hungry backs looking for an opportunity, give them a chance, being a bully to young guys is not how you build a team

Acy and Denmark are corner depth and Lamont Wade os looking to replace Hilton, so less safety more corner, raw up and comers for needed depth

 

Here I thought you were picking 7-10. That is the real eye opener there!!!