The Steelers not acquiring a veteran QB may be the smart move

One of the biggest business decisions facing the Pittsburgh Steelers in at least the last 20 years is what they do at the quarterback position. For the first time in 18 years the organization will enter the offseason without certainty at the quarterback position. Messing this one up could set the team back a decade, but the right choice could keep the Steelers a contender for another 20 years.

The value of the position in the grand spectrum of sports is rivalled by no other. Heck, having a bad quarterback will get great coaches fired. So the easy choice would be for the organization to go out and land the biggest available free agent fish come the new league year, but is that really the smartest decision?

First of all, if the Steelers want to land either Aaron Rodgers or Russell Wilson it probably starts to the tune of three first round draft picks. It also comes with bloated contracts that will devour what remains of the Steelers’ salary cap. This team simply has too many holes to fill to give away that amount of draft capital, and even though they have a ton of cap space this offseason, a big name quarterback could easily eat over half of it. The Steelers would have to be so certain they could build a championship roster with the remaining funds to make such a move, but I'm not sure there are enough free agents willing to take discounts to make such a move possible.

By forgoing this idea of chasing a big named star the Steelers can do a couple of important things. For starters they should be able to spend $50-70 million dollars, this number increasing base on cuts and restructures, on fixing the flaws on this team. The Steelers could go into 2022 with less than $10 million spent (total) on quarterback, and that's even with taking one in the first round and picking up Dwayne Haskins’ Restricted Free Agent (RFA) deal. Just think back to when Ben Roethlisberger was a rookie. The Steelers were loaded on defense, had a good offensive line, and the offensive skill players were also top notch.

If the Steelers can plug their issues with smart free agency spending, and make the right pick at quarterback in the 2022 NFL Draft, they could absolutely contend as early as next year. This is all much easier said than done, but at least they can shore up a number of positions in free agency before they go out and attempt to find the next franchise quarterback regardless of who that might be.

But what do you think? Is it smarter for the Steelers to trade for a big name quarterback or spend their money elsewhere and draft one? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

I talk more about this in the latest episode of my Live Mike podcast, check it out in the player below: