‘Decimated’ Steelers face grim 2021 outlook: The panic in Pittsburgh

Sadly, it’s the Steelers way: Stand back while your team hemorrhages talent to the highest bitter. The Steelers’ brain trust has long viewed NFL free agency as Bizarro World. Free-spending teams pony up insane prices for top players, only to see their collection of high-priced spare parts fail to perform as a winning team on the field. This knock on free agency was especially true when fat-pocketed football idiots like Daniel Snyder we’re bidding up prices. Slapped-together clubs like the Washington Football Team of old rarely fulfilled their free agency potential, seemingly proving more conservative clubs like the Steelers correct. But it’s not that way anymore. The NFL has changed. The Steelers have not. Last year, NFL eyebrows were raised when Tampa Bay inked Tom Brady as a Super Bowl savior. The so-called smart money was predicting a Tampa train wreck. Flash-forward a year, and the Bucs have their second Lombardi Trophy, and Brady is polishing his seventh Super Bowl ring -- perhaps the sweetest of all because it came after free agency lifted Brady from beneath Bill Belichick’s thumb. That’s the kind of championship-winning change free agency can deliver in today’s NFL. In panicked Pittsburgh, it’s still known as the time in mid-March when blood runs in the streets. There hasn’t been this much carnage during the ides of March since the days Julius Caesar came under his traitors’ knives. For the Steelers, it’s a blunter tool that’s carving them up – the dollars, always the dollars. Steeler after ex-Steeler is following the money straight out of town. The exodus was long predicted. But it’s still tough to take. And there’s real reason to worry: The decimated Steelers are developing more holes than their salary-cap-strapped resources and even this year’s NFL draft can hope fill. When you suffer trauma, the first thing they do at the hospital is cut off all your clothes to assesses the damage under those harsh exam room lights. In this edition of the Steelers Update Podcast, we pronounce the Pittsburgh pigskin prognosis after all the free agency hemorrhaging suffered by your Steelers. Hint: It isn’t pretty. Neither is the way some Steelers’ fans are rationalizing their team’s massive talent loss. The tortured logic is all wet. Find out why in the podcast. And be sure to check out my full print column every Thursday morning on PennLive. I assemble all the best memes and tweets to really tell the story of this week’s football fracas in the Steel City -- a plethora of content exclusive to the column. Check them both out, Steelers fans!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices