Steelers One of Five Teams Facing Make-or-Break Seasons
The Pittsburgh Steelers are one of five teams facing a make-or-break season, according to Bleacher Report.
BR's Chris Roling named the Steelers, along with Arizona Cardinals, Dallas Cowboys, Cincinnati Bengals and New Orleans Saints, as five teams facing do-or-die seasons. Roling points to the teams' cap situations and current roster as the tools in deciding who's facing the end.
The clock on Big Ben continues to tick.
Now 39 and working with a surgically repaired throwing elbow, Ben Roethlisberger is in what appears to be his final year with the Pittsburgh Steelers. It doesn't help that last year a win-now core went a fluky 11-0 to start the season before finishing 1-4 down the stretch. The final game was a brutal loss to the Cleveland Browns in the playoffs.
From that vantage point, things already seem to be declining. The Steelers lost franchise linebacker Bud Dupree in free agency and cut offensive line mainstay David DeCastro, so one could argue Big Ben might have to do more of the heavy lifting than usual.
Should Roethlisberger falter, the Steelers are positioned to have about $76 million in free cap space in 2022. That's prime rebuild territory if the franchise quarterback doesn't return and assets like JuJu Smith-Schuster choose to play elsewhere in free agency.
The Steelers replaced Dupree and DeCastro with free agent Trai Turner and second-year edge rusher Alex Highsmith.
Roling points to Mason Rudolph and the next quarterback era as the deciding factor to the Steelers' long-term success. Still, he doesn't seem too confident Pittsburgh can keep the train moving much longer without a rebuild.
Noah Strackbein is a Publisher with AllSteelers. Follow Noah on Twitter @NoahStrack, and AllSteelers @si_steelers.
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