Pittsburgh crawled out to an 0-4 start in 2013 with three of those losses coming to non-playoff teams, a quarter-pole in-depthmark that left the Steelers behind the eight-ball right away. But the team rallied, finishing 8-8 for the second consecutive year and playing the season’s final week with playoffs on the line.

So what are the Steelers right now? Are they the bottom feeder that got off to the terrible start or the up-and-comer that finished 8-4? And how far are they from making another run into the postseason? Neal Coolong, managing editor of Behind the Steel Curtain, says the team has put some salary cap issues behind it and might not be far from getting back in that mix. Here’s what he had to say.

Zoneblitz: The Steelers got off to a rocky 0-4 start but rebounded to finish 8-8, just a game from the playoffs. What is your assessment of the 2013 team?

Coolong: It was a team that didn’t really get going until after mid-season, and incidentally, not until it was slaughtered by the New England Patriots. While that was a defensive collapse of epic proportions, that game was tied in the third quarter. But defensively, they just couldn’t handle an offense like that – a healthy Rob Gronkowski tends to do that to teams.

While the team was dogged by the notion they were old, I felt the real problem was their youth. The fact Pittsburgh had to start two rookies in their linebackers group – Jarvis Jones and Vince Williams – exposed them in run defense as well as in their pass rush and coverage. No rookie started in Dick LeBeau’s Steelers defense in the nine years he’s been the team’s defensive coordinator. Two of them started in the same unit, and one of them was taken in the sixth round (Williams replaced veteran Larry Foote, who was lost for the season in Week 1).

The way they ended the year was inspiring. While “good” teams would have found ways to close out both Baltimore (road) and Miami (home), they showed a huge amount of improvement from where they were in their first four games.

Zoneblitz: Ben Roethlisberger has been around a decade and he continues putting up solid numbers every year. Is he underappreciated? And how much do you think he has left in the tank?

Coolong: I wonder if it’s possible for a starting quarterback to be underappreciated in today’s Hype Era. If a quarterback would be close to that, though, I think it’d be Roethlisberger. In a pure sense, Roethlisberger made a viable case for the league’s MVP last season (although definitely not something he should have won over Peyton Manning). The team didn’t win when Roethlisberger didn’t play well, and he gutted them to a few big victories, all the while, plagued with disastrous pass protection and zero running game until the final quarter of the season. He’s a great game quarterback, and I think he’s still yet to reach his “best” season as a passer.

I think he’s got plenty left in the tank. Look at how he threw at the end of last season – not coincidentally, it was the least amount of times he’d been sacked in an eight-game period in his career, and he wasn’t injured like he had been at the end of the last two years.

Quarterbacks can play well into their 30s, and what we saw from Roethlisberger, when he’s controlling the offense in No Huddle, is he can be every part the cerebral quarterback his much more appreciated colleagues are.

Zoneblitz: Pittsburgh signed Lance Moore, but Emmanuel Sanders and Jerricho Cotchery, who combined for 16 TDs and 1342 yards, are gone off a team that lost Mike Wallace last year. Is Markus Wheaton ready to step up and what else has to happen to firm up the offensive skill talent?

Coolong: I think anyone will have to admit there’s at least some reason to laugh when reading the question, “Do you think it will be difficult to replace Emmanuel Sanders and Jerricho Cotchery?” Steelers fans probably get a kick out of the laundry list of receivers the team has let walk over the Roethlisberger Era only to see the guys who were once questioned as replacements being the subject of the question “How do you replace him?”

Jerricho Cotchery is a good football player, but his 10 touchdowns are incredibly over the standard for his career, it shouldn’t even have been used in his contract negotiations. He’s a well-liked player and teammate, and personally, I’m happy one of the good guys gets a good contract to end his career, but it’s silly to think his production can’t be matched – Moore is younger and could be a better route-runner than Cotchery anyway. The point, though, is the fact Pittsburgh’s offense will have back an All Pro level receiver, Antonio Brown, and will get the benefit of having both Heath Miller and Le’Veon Bell back at 100 percent (knock on wood) for 16 games. The presence of those players on the field, when healthy, helped Cotchery on at least a few of those touchdowns.

Sanders is a wide receiver much better known for clutch performances on special teams than catching passes. In fact, Steelers fans were probably more upset with the Steelers matching New England’s offer last year than taking their third round pick. Like many former Steelers receivers, a solid player, he could have a solid career boosted by a Peyton Manning-led offense. But a replaceable player in the Steelers’ offense.

Is Wheaton that guy? Well, why not? Sanders replaced Wallace who replaced Santonio who replaced Nate Washington who replaced Plaxico. What in that chain suggests there’s a reason to think history, at least, is on his side? Wheaton’s rookie season was marred by injuries and a stupid rule that prevented him from attending minicamp (the last shred of an ancient façade trying to make the public believe schools care more about academics than their football programs). He has a season under his belt, he stops breaking fingers, and I think he’s going to have a solid year.

Zoneblitz: The 370 points allowed in 2013 was 14th in the league, but the worst Pittsburgh has given up since 421 in 1988 — and 143 more than in 2011. What has gone wrong and what has to be done to fix it?

Coolong: Worst part is it felt like it was so much more than that.

Where to begin? The lack of a veteran buck linebacker hurt at least as bad as the presence of an inexperienced and relatively underskilled linebacker in his place. The lack of edge pressure generated without LaMarr Woodley (pressured well when he was healthy) along with the lack of sacks led to the team’s lack of turnovers (didn’t have a turnover until their fifth game). All those things combined means you’re playing a very passive brand of defensive football. There were spot struggles here and there, but collectively, the Steelers defense hasn’t been as physical or as aggressive as it’s known to be.

They’ve made some moves on their defensive line (Cam Thomas in, Ziggy Hood and Brett Keisel out) and having another training camp as well as a pro-level offseason program will do Williams and Jones quite a bit of good. Same for Shamarko Thomas, a sub package safety who also saw extensive time as a rookie before injury limited his season after Week 9.

Mike Mitchell is a bigger and faster player than Ryan Clark, and while it may take him a bit to understand the free safety’s role in Dick LeBeau’s defense, an increase in splash plays from the position seems fair to assume. If Jason Worilds can play in 2014 the way he ended 2013, they have a high-level edge rusher, which can be helped by the emerging presence of Cam Heyward as one of the most disruptive 5-technique players in the league.

Expect a draft pick to go on defense as well, I’d guess a cornerback right now.

Zoneblitz: Outside of Moore, the Steelers have primarily signed a number of lesser-known, lower-priced free agents. Can the Steelers get back to the playoffs in 2014 while trying to fill a roster using the lowest salary cap available in the league?

Coolong: To be fair, Lance Moore is only well-known because he played in a prolific passing offense and Fantasy Football has replaced Actual Football as the country’s favorite pastime.

The one thing the players they signed have in common is there’s a trait they possess that makes them unique. Thomas is very strong, Mitchell is a great athlete. Arthur Moats is versatile (can play inside or outside linebacker), Moore is a precise route-runner and LeGarrette Blount is a beast on stretch zone runs. It seems more like the Steelers recognize the value in a stronger emphasis on situational football, and many of these guys can be used to their best strength, as opposed to simply using the best all-around players in shallow personnel groupings.

As far as the cap goes, I don’t think anyone can fairly say Kevin Colbert didn’t do a quality job bringing in an infusion of youth and athleticism on the defensive side in particular. We’ll reserve final judgment for the season, but I think they did enough for fans to think they’ve improved on an 8-8 team that came a Ryan Succop missed field goal away from the postseason after finishing 6-2 in their last eight games.

Zoneblitz: It’s oft-said that in the NFL the worst place a team can be is mediocre. That’s about where Pittsburgh has been the last couple years. How do the Steelers shake that off and how far are they from getting back to contender status?

Coolong: I think the Steelers have been the very definition of mediocre over the last two years. I’d even go as far as to say they weren’t really much better than average when they were 12-4 in 2011. The lack of sacks and turnovers from 2011-13 really has been the main issue, but a lack of offensive continuity particularly along its offensive line raises fair questions about the direction of the offense. We saw a big uptick in that area over the end of last season, the emergence of Le’Veon Bell and a shorter passing game led by Roethlisberger in their no-huddle approach keyed a lot of it.

A continuance of that approach along with a fresher defensive personnel group should help them all around but particularly in splash stats (i.e. forced fumbles, interceptions and sacks). The presence of those stats defines a great defense, and the lack of them defines mediocrity, or worse.

Zoneblitz: Last year you were critical of recent Steelers drafts, saying the team picked “like jackholes.” After year one what do you think of the 2013 draft?

Coolong: For as much as I just bashed the rookies who were forced into action last year, that’s also one of the strengths they have going into 2014. Bell put up Rookie of the Year-level numbers. Jones is an offseason in the weight room and the buffet line away from becoming a solid all-around player. Wheaton was reportedly among the hardest working players in camp last year, right up there with Thomas. Williams played more snaps than a huge amount of the rookies last season. That’s FIVE players who will all see significant snaps this season, and in the case of Bell and Jones, will be critical components on the offense and defense, respectively.

Outside of that, I think they got talented and hard-working guys who will grow with the team. As the recent migration of mid-round draft picks the Steelers have had shows, they needed to reload with quality character guys, and by all accounts, that’s what they have in this class.

Plus, they got Landry Jones…which is good. Ahem. Maybe.

Zoneblitz: What else would you like to see Pittsburgh do in free agency and then in the draft?

Coolong: This may not tie specifically to free agency, but I think they have the ability to free up some room cap-wise by signing Worilds to an extension. I guess it’s a risk-reward thing, though. As much fun as it was to see Worilds producing the sack and pressure numbers we haven’t seen for so long over the last half of the year, we have to remember who he went against. Mitchell Schwartz in Cleveland is not exactly among the best in the game. There was an undrafted free agent playing right tackle in Detroit, he whipped him too. Michael Oher? Yeah, Worilds got the better of him. But against Andre Smith of Cincinnati, one of the better tackles in the game, he did nothing.

There are more than a few of those dud games on Worilds’ resume, so I can see why the team is hesitant about giving him a long-term deal. Maybe he’s hesitant about signing whatever Pittsburgh allegedly offered. Either way, he’s carrying a $9.75 million cap charge with him into the season with no guarantee he’s back in 2015. The Steelers are really thin in the cupboard in terms of pass rush, so if they’re not 100 percent confident Worilds is their guy over the next few years, they need another pass rusher who could potentially play a starter’s share of snaps in 2015.

Follow Neal Coolong on Twitter at: @NealCoolong
Follow Behind the Steel Curtain on Twitter at: @btsteelcurtain
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