As fans, we waited around 26 years for this team to get that elusive “one for the thumb.” I, along with many fans, began to look forward to the chance of this team building a new dynasty. Cowher had been to 6 AFCC games in his tenure, and was now paired with a franchise quarterback for the first time. The team was well balanced, as it usually was. There were some aging players, but every team has them and the Steelers have always been good at filling holes.

But then came 2006, and the off-season from hell. The team would go just 8-8. It’s debatable, but I attribute most of that to Roethlisberger falling off. The team still only missed the playoffs by just one game. That off-season was followed by another set-back, however. Bill Cowher retired, and the team hired a young defensive coordinator named Mike Tomlin.

After winning that ‘05 ring, I expected a lot more from this entire franchise. Right or wrong, I thought the time had finally come for the Steelers to return to their greatness. Prior to that season, there was never a big game the team entered where I didn’t expect something to go horribly wrong. I had love-hate relationship with Cowher (something I know I wasn’t alone in), but had ultimately seen enough and wanted him fired. The 2004 and 2005 seasons, though, gave me a sense of optimism about this teams future. No longer would the story be how close they were. Roethlisberger was going to change that. He was that missing piece that Cowher’s teams had always lacked.

I still largely believe that, but this season has changed things some. There was a time in the ‘90’s or early part of this century where that would have been enough. Roethlisberger would have been the difference from the 1997 and 2001 squads, if not some of those other Cowher coached teams. But the competition is greater today than it was then, and more is now needed to put this team over the top.

Cowher never had to compete with an AFC field as tough as this one. I’m in the minority here, but I see a field of young QB’s that are developing that will pose a threat in the future. The crop of QB’s hasn’t been this deep since the 80’s in the NFC, and before that, the 70’s in the AFC. I have always been a believer in Rivers. The Browns now have two guys they put their faith in at the QB position, one of which has shown he’s at least competent. The Bungals have Carson Palmer, and there’s still the big two. You then have wildcards like Jay Cutler (who I do believe will pan out) and Vince Young.

The big three the Steelers will need to compete with, however, are the Patriots, Chargers, and Colts (and that order means something). The Chargers are what the Steelers used to be, only with Rivers under center. They have that punishing ground attack Cowher had throughout the first 10 years of his coaching career, and they have a group of LB’s on par with those great defenses of the mid-90’s. They have depth across the board. They win football game in the trenches. The Colts have found a consistent method of building their team around their star QB. The Patriots, though, have achieved true greatness. They are the single reason the Steelers will struggle to be great as they are.

The Steelers of 1970’s were great teams. They kept down a number of good teams. If these Steelers hope to be more, they need to find a way to match the Pats greatness, and fast. That needs to start this off-season, because as great as the Pats are on the field, they are even better in terms of managing their talent off it. The Patriots were on a two year Super Bowl drought, and decided to up the ante in the AFC. They used the same versatility they have always had on the field to restock their fading team in just one off-season. Their receivers were a weakness, so they added four new ones. They replaced their first three players on the depth chart. They also grabbed Adalius Thomas to add some athleticism to their defense. The Steelers responded by signing Sean Mahan at center to replace All-Pro Jeff Hartings. The Patriots changes led to their QB and team rewriting the history books, while the Steelers decisions led to their QB being sacked the second most times in franchise history.

You see, the Rooney’s have a formula for building good teams. They will consistently put playoff teams on the field, even without a star QB. Roethlisberger has the ability to take those teams to the next level, and he did that in 2005. However, right now the Steelers will have to find a way to get through a once in a generation team like the Patriots. The Steelers right now seem destined to end up as the Giants or Redskins of the 1980’s, or the Cowboys and Raiders of the 1970’s. Maybe some fans will be happy with that, but I won’t be. The team has the potential to be much more.

We see this formula at work every off-season, and it works. The Rooney’s let a lot of guys walk. They refuse to overpay guys because other teams are stupid enough to do so. This is a smart practice that has usually worked out well for the team. It’s also the same thing you see from the Patriots and Colts, and the Steelers have been doing it longer. All three teams have relied mostly on the draft to build their team and avoided high priced FA’s. The Colts and Steelers, though (the two teams haunted the most by the Pats), use free agency far less than the Pats. The Colts have taken to signing a few marquee players they have drafted to monster contracts. They let a lot of guys walk because they view them as expendable, and they replace them in the draft. The Steelers take a more balanced approach, and have spread the money out more. The two philosophies aren’t drastically different, though.

The Patriots, much like on the field, have no strict formula they follow. They have maxims, but they don’t live and die with them. Like a great general, they understand that each situation is unique, and that they must constantly change their approach. There are times when they seem to break their own rules, such as when they grab a Corey Dillon or a Randy Moss. That is the quality that allows the Patriots to be great, while others are merely “good.” This is what the Steelers have to realize if they want to compete year in and year out with this team. They may get by the Pats once in the post-season like the Colts, but the Pats will come back with a vengeance. They will correct their mistakes, and they won’t even have to mortgage their future to do it. One only has to look at this past off-season for the ultimate proof of that. They traded a mere fourth rounder for Moss and gave him a one year deal. They managed to grab an extra first rounder for next season in the top 10 of the draft, and they signed three other quality players in FA that will remain on the team without killing their cap. They will say goodbye to Samuel and Moss (most likely, at least), but they will have gotten a ring out of them and manage to play next year at a very high level.

The Steelers have already come out and said they aren’t going to look heavily at FA. Maybe it’s a bluff, but history suggests otherwise. Once every few years the Steelers make a smart signing in FA. There will be a cheap player who ends up being more than hoped, like Ryan Clark. Then there are guys like Cedric Wilson and Sean Mahan, though. They fail to live up to the expectations. Wilson is a respectable role player, while Mahan has been a bust. They got nice production out of Hartings, but Duce Staley failed and hurt the cap for several seasons. The Steelers haven’t even really looked at many other players in FA.

The Rooney’s have stated that they won’t look to add more than one or two players in FA, because they aren’t some expansion team. Well, alls I’m going to do is point to the Patriots again. Last year they added Adalius Thomas, Wes Welker, Donte Stallworth, Randy Moss, and Kelly Washington. They rebuilt their entire group of receivers. The past off-season they added Junior Seau. Prior to 2001 the Pats went out and added 20 lower end FA’s. They replaced the entire bottom half of their roster. A lot of those guys weren’t much, but 16 ended up playing in the Super Bowl. A few, like Mike Vrabel, ended up being cornerstones to their dynasty.

Last year seemed like the perfect time for the Steelers to do the same. The team clearly had some issues after the 8-8 season. I wrote an article on how I had little hope the team would make any big splashes in FA, but that they should replace the bottom of their roster. A new coach should have that luxury. The team had awful special teams, an aging group of LB’s, an aging DL, a weak OL, and some questions at receiver/TE.

I wrote that the team should take a look at Kelly Washington. This was a man with size and speed who was buried in Cinci at receiver. He ended up in New England, and has become a solid special teamer for them. With Randy Moss potentially leaving this off-season, he may end up being even more then that. Washington has a lot of potential as a receiver. Even if he doesn’t pan out there, wouldn’t it have been nice to have a guy like that on the roster?

I said the Steelers should have taken a look at Ryan Bingham from San Diego. Again, he was buried on their depth chart. Teams used to raid the Steelers for players like this, so it seemed like a good idea to me. Luis Castillo would end up getting hurt for the Chargers. Bingham would fill in nicely for them this season, and they extended that one year contract he received this past off-season for three more. This year Aaron Smith would go down, and that glaring weakness behind the Steelers starting three that I saw was exposed to the entire world. I had hoped Kirschke would be a cap cut, and that the team would look to add some young player for depth. What we got was Nick Eason, a man so awful that the team gave up on him after one game of filling in for Smith.

I had a list of young, lower tier FA’s for this team to look at. The team would end up drafting players at all those positions. I wanted a second TE, they took Spaeth in the third. I wanted a bigger receiver, they took Baker. I wanted a young DE prospect, they took McBean (a project). I wanted some LB’s, they took two on day 1. You can see that two of those picks failed to contribute this year. Same could be said of Stephenson and others. You can see that there is a small margin of error when you use just the draft. Young guys don’t pan out right away. McBean may end up working out (doubtful), but he did no good this year. Instead of giving themselves multiple options now, they took one project and signed an obvious scrub (one they had seen throughout his career, no less). Instead of being creative, they went with the same old and it didn’t work. Maybe if the team uses FA a little more, they don’t need to draft by need so much every year. Maybe that allows them to take best player available, or go for volume picks. Think about what happens if they hit DE and WR in FA. That’s two more picks they could potentially use on the OL.

We face the same situation this year, and I don’t expect many changes. We may get a mid-tier FA like Farrior if we’re lucky. The team will use the draft almost exclusively, and probably fail to fill their immediate holes for this upcoming season. Another season of Roethlisberger’s prime may end up being wasted. And by the time the guys they drafted pan out, new holes will have opened up. That’s the game the Steelers play, and it keeps them just good enough to be in the big picture…until some big dog like the Pats comes around and knocks them out. They may break through a few times more, but they will be second fiddle to at least one other team the way they are.

I have little reason to hope for change. After all, this is the same team that stuck with Cowher through 14 years of futility. This is a team that passed on Dan Marino in the draft because they wanted to mirror how they built their dynasty, and decided to take a DT. The Steelers of the 1970’s seem like the perfect storm of events for the Rooney’s. They found a great coach, and they won the lottery in the draft. It was before FA and they could roll after that. The Rooney’s have failed to realize that things have changed, however. Their lack of versatility trickles down throughout this organization, and it will prevent this team from getting back to where they once were. And it’s the curse of every Steelers fans to have to deal with being always being close, but never quite good enough until things change.