Mar 4, 2022 5 min read

INDIANAPOLIS – Teams that don’t have a proven NFL quarterback can often get caught in the trap of desperation. And that’s when mistakes are made.

That’s the pitfall the Steelers must avoid this offseason as they do their due diligence in trying to replace Ben Roethlisberger.

The Steelers have Mason Rudolph under contract for the 2022 season. They will likely tender an offer to Dwayne Haskins as a restricted free agent in the coming week.

But neither quarterback has shown they are the answer – at least in the long term.

“There’s really two drafts each year. There’s the quarterback draft and the rest of the draft,” Greg Cosell, analyst for NFL Films, said this week at the NFL Scouting Combine. “It’s true. For all we know, four quarterbacks could go in the first round again. Nobody knows. They can say what they want right now. I know this isn’t politically correct right now, but I’ll say it: When you don’t have a girlfriend, they all look like a 10. If you don’t have a quarterback, you tend to jump and take one.”

What the Steelers can’t do, according to Cosell, is make the mistake the New York Jets did in 2009 after Brett Favre left to join the Minnesota Vikings in free agency.

With only Eric Ainge on their roster after missing out on quarterbacks in free agency, the Jets traded up with the Cleveland Browns, moving from the 17th pick in the draft to the fifth after Matthew Stafford went first overall to the Detroit Lions.

“They needed a quarterback,” Cosell said. “They knew (Mark) Sanchez was not the fifth pick in the draft based on his traits and talent. But they needed a quarterback.”

The Jets went to the AFC Championship in each of his first two seasons, but Sanchez wasn’t the reason that was happening. The Jets had a very strong defense.

When that defense started to age and hit free agency, Sanchez couldn’t carry the load. After the 2012 season, he was gone. And getting five years out of a player you moved up to get with the fifth-overall pick in the draft isn’t ideal.

• Kenny Pickett’s hands were a massive story here this week. His hand size is 8½ inches.

That’s smaller than teams want at the position, by about half an inch.

Hand size doesn’t necessarily affect things when it comes to throwing the ball. The gloves players wear makes it easy for them to grip the ball.

But it could show up in fumbles. To that point, Pickett fumbled 26 times in 48 career games at Pitt. But he only had three of those fumbles in 2021. He got better with his ball security.

• Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert and the rest of the organization had been very non-committal on a potential return of defensive end Stephon Tuitt in 2022 after he missed last season with a knee injury while also dealing with the tragedy of the loss of his brother in a hit-and-run accident.

Both Colbert and team president Art Rooney II said they would welcome Tuitt back, but weren’t sure if he wanted to play.

That changed this week.

“Absolutely,” Colbert replied when I asked him this week if Tuitt had expressed an interest in playing football next season.

“He wanted to play last year. He had a knee injury he had to work his way through, and obviously the family situation, that hurt along those lines. But we respected what he had to deal with. And we tried to support him the best as possible.”

That would be a welcome addition to the Steelers. And it would lessen the need to spend big, either in free agency or the draft, to bolster the defensive line.

The Steelers might still want to add another body to the rotation after getting caught short without both Tuitt and Tyson Alualu last season. With both of those guys coming back, the biggest need might be drafting a nose tackle of the future to replace Alualu, who turns 35 this year.

• There are a couple of players in this draft who seem destined to be Steelers. The first is Connor Heyward, a fullback out of Michigan State. He is the younger brother of All-Pro defensive end Cameron Heyward.

The other is Western Michigan wide receiver Skyy Moore.

Moore blazed through a 40-yard dash Thursday night, posting a 4.39-second time. And he’s coming off a 92-catch, 1,300-yard season with 10 touchdowns, drawing comparisons to another former MAC star, Antonio Brown, for his quick release at the line of scrimmage.

Moore is considered a second-round prospect.

But the kicker is that the New Kensington native played football at Shady Side Academy, where he was a quarterback/defensive back. His No. 1 wide receiver on the team was Dino Tomlin, the son of Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin.