Feb 25, 2022 5 min read

While many were complaining about the Steelers’ offseason hiring processes – or at least a very vocal minority on social media – the team went ahead and made an inspired hire last weekend with the addition of former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores to Mike Tomlin’s coaching staff.

It was perhaps the biggest hire in the NFL this offseason. This despite the fact Flores was hired as senior defensive assistant and linebackers coach.

Steelers president Art Rooney II likely ticked off some of his fellow owners with the hiring, notably those in Miami, Denver and with the New York Giants by giving the OK to hire Flores. Flores is, after all, suing those three organizations along with the NFL in general over the league’s minority hiring practices.

His hiring, however, goes beyond those implications. Flores is a good defensive mind – one of the best in the league. Couple his addition to the elevation of Teryl Austin to defensive coordinator and Tomlin, and the Steelers have as good a defensive braintrust as there is in the league.

It also should help the team attract free agents when the signing period begins March 16. The reaction by players, and former players, of seeing a young Black coach who is suing the league get a job was that of excitement.

Tomlin and Rooney were largely praised for what was designated by many to be a classy move.

It was a win-win situation. The Steelers got a good football coach, one who is overqualified for the job. And Rooney, who chairs the league’s diversity committee, got an opportunity to do the right thing when it came to a minority coach who shouldn’t have been fired in Miami in the first place after leading the Dolphins to back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in two decades.

• Steelers GM Kevin Colbert somehow sent shockwaves across the team’s fandom when he said last Monday that if the season began on that day – or today, for that matter – – Mason Rudolph would be the team’s starting quarterback.

No kidding. Rudolph is currently the only quarterback under contract for the 2022 season on the team’s roster.

But, while Tomlin and Rooney were a little more on the fence when they were asked about the prospect of Rudolph being the team’s starter in 2022, Colbert was more supportive of the former third-round draft pick.

“Mason is 5-4-1 as a starter,” Colbert said. “One of those games this year, he found out he was going to be the starter Saturday night, and he tried to give us what he could. We almost won that game. So, I’m comfortable that Mason has won more games than he’s lost as a starter. Where that can go, we’ll see. To be an NFL starter you can win with, you’ve got to prove it over 16 games, and I’m anxious to see if that’s the case.”

That doesn’t mean Rudolph will be the starter at the end of August. But he’ll at least be given a chance to compete for that job.

• Can the Steelers win with Rudolph at quarterback? They went 5-3 in games he started in 2019 when he was paired with a strong defense.

But the Steelers also ranked 29th in the NFL running the ball that season, averaging only 90.4 yards per game.

Improve the running game and get the defense back on track after a tough season on that side of the ball in 2021, and the Steelers can win with Rudolph.

After all, this is a franchise that made it to a Super Bowl with Neil O’Donnell at quarterback. It reached AFC Championship games with O’Donnell and Kordell Stewart at the helm.

• Here’s hoping Major League Baseball doesn’t play another game until the league has some kind of salary cap in place.

I’m not hopeful that will be the case. The teams that spend $300 million per year on payroll still hold too much sway in the league.

But salary caps also come with salary floors. And they also work in every other major sports league in North America.

• The Steelers have been linked with virtually every veteran starting quarterback who is or might be available this offseason.

But I can’t see them trading away draft capital and then also paying $25-plus million for a veteran quarterback rental.

This team has an opportunity to reset its salary cap structure, which for years was dominated by the fact Ben Roethlisberger was making star quarterback money.

Get the cap in shape, build the roster and then make a play for a quarterback of the future.

That doesn’t mean the Steelers will simply punt on winning in 2022. They just don’t do that.

The chances that they’ll simply go from Roethlisberger to their next franchise quarterback are slim.