The 2021 Steelers can prove change isn’t always a bad thing

Change, it is an inevitable part of life. And not just life, but also teams in the National Football League.

Since the beginning of free agency, NFL rosters have become a yearly turnstile for players coming and going via free agency. Some fans struggle with roster turnover, but, as stated before, change is inevitable.

For the Pittsburgh Steelers, they are seeing a massive amount of change entering the 2021 regular season. And this coming from an organization who hates change. It always reminds me of a clip from one of my favorite movies, Wayne’s World.

For an organization with only three head coaches since 1969, you can say they despise change, which makes things mighty uncomfortable at times for the Steelers’ front office.

Do you think they enjoyed letting Joey Porter go? Absolutely not.

Do you think they wanted Bruce Arians to be let go the way he was? Probably not.

The Steelers like to keep things as normal as possible, this in the constantly changing, and evolving, NFL.

After last season the Steelers were forced to make some drastic changes for multiple reasons. On the coaching staff they said goodbye to several coaches, for a variety of reasons, and are seeing a new offensive coordinator and a new offensive line coach tasked with rebuilding the team’s running game. On the field the Steelers will be ushering in an almost brand new offensive line in 2021 and a shiny new prospect in Najee Harris who will be toting the football.

The decreased salary cap resulted in the losses of Bud Dupree, Mike Hilton, Steven Nelson, Alejandro Villanueva and Matt Feiler. Throw in the retirement of Maurkice Pouncey and all of these losses sting in their own way. It won’t be easy to fill all those voids, but good teams find a way.

This brings us back to the crux of this article, and that is how change isn’t always a bad thing. If Matt Canada, and all his unique and uncharacteristic ideas, help spark the Steelers’ offense, you can consider that a positive change. If Adrian Klemm creates an offensive line which is physical and aggressive at the point of attack, that too can be chalked up to positive change.

Likewise, if the Steelers see a huge uptick from players like Alex Highsmith, Cam Sutton, James Pierre, Justin Layne, Zach Banner, B.J. Finney and/or Kendrick Green, suddenly the losses of those aforementioned players becomes less of an issue.

Sure, this is putting a positive spin on the change which has already taken place. Things could go the other way, proving the losses of those players and the changes at key coaching positions could be a detriment to the team in 2021.

Either way, no one can say whether this change will be good, or bad, for the team moving forward. Why? Because no one knows.

Until Matt Canada calls a full NFL game, or season, as the offensive coordinator, can you really judge what he’ll do?

The same can be said for Adrian Klemm. Until you see his offensive line being man-handled, can you say the running game will continue to struggle under his tutelage?

Change is inevitable, but it doesn’t always mean it is a negative. Sometimes change leads you to bigger and better things. The tough part is the wait, because only time will tell whether the Steelers changes will be positive, or negative.