Ben Roethlisberger signed a new three-year deal Wednesday that makes him a Steeler through the 2021 season. That means he is almost assuredly going to become one of those rare players who will finish a long career with the same team that drafted him.
It also means the Steelers now have three more seasons to build another Super Bowl contender around him. They have some work to do to get there, but people sometimes forget that lost in all the “disastrous offseason after missing the playoffs” narrative is the fact that they were 9-6-1, not 2-14.
The Steelers missed winning their division by a half game. That is the margin they need to make up to get back to being a playoff team and that probably can be accounted for with more reliable and competent kicking. Chris Boswell cost the Steelers at least one game last season, if not more.
The flip side is the 2017 season, when the Steelers went 13-3. They weren’t that good, and the way they were handled by Jacksonville in the playoffs proved it. That season, they got every break they needed and the ball bounced their way every time they needed it to.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of those two seasons. And that is precisely why this offseason is so important for the Steelers.
Roethlisberger’s window is the Steelers’ window, unless they get incredibly lucky and find another Roethlisberger over the next few seasons. It won’t be Josh Dobbs and it won’t be Mason Rudolph, mostly because it is likely one or both will get tired of waiting and be gone by the time Roethlisberger retires.
The proof is in the pudding. The Super Steelers won their last Super Bowl in 1980, and Bill Cowher’s Steelers won their first Super Bowl in 2006. That’s 26 years. And that long gap was roughly from the end of the Terry Bradshaw years to the start of the Roethlisberger years.
It’s not a coincidence that the Steelers stopped winning Super Bowls until they found their next franchise quarterback. It is the reality in the NFL. Yes, teams have won without elite, Hall of Fame-worthy quarterbacks, but it isn’t easy.
The team is built around his talents and his ability to carry them and push them to a higher place. That’s why all the stuff about Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell feeling “disrespected” because Roethlisberger was getting some sort of special treatment was silly. This is Roethlisberger’s team, and that’s how it will be until he retires.
That’s why the Steelers must make every move with the next three years in mind. They obviously can’t draft seven rounds’ worth of players who can give them an impact immediately, but they can’t miss on the early rounds. They need to fill holes and figure out what will push them over the top while Roethlisberger is still the quarterback.
Paul Zeise: pzeise@post-gazette.com and Twitter @PaulZeise
First Published: April 25, 2019, 6:10 p.m.
