Tim Benz: Art Rooney II feels urgency about ending Steelers’ playoff win drought. Great, show us
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During a season-ending media availability Monday, Pittsburgh Steelers president Art Rooney II was asked if there was a sense of urgency within the franchise to finally win a playoff game again. After all, it’s been seven years since that has happened, and Rooney’s franchise has accomplished that task in just two of the past 13 seasons under head coach Mike Tomlin.
“I think there’s an urgency,” Rooney II replied. “I think everybody, myself, Mike, guys that have been on the team for a while, T.J. (Watt), Cam (Heyward), everybody, we’ve had enough of this. It’s time to get some wins. It’s time to take these next steps. So, yeah, I think there’s some urgency here, for sure.”
Wonderful. I’m dying to see how that sense of urgency manifests this offseason.
What does that mean, exactly? Big signings in free agency or trade acquisitions, perhaps even at quarterback? An aggressive move up the first round of the draft board? Out-of-the-box, creative hires for the coaching staff?
The problem is I’m sensing zero indication any of that is going to happen. If there are other ways to show how urgently the franchise is taking its attempt to end this playoff win drought, I’d love to hear them.
So far this offseason, all we’ve gotten from Rooney and Tomlin are:
• Hearty endorsements as to why the team is standing behind the idea of Kenny Pickett resuming his starting status at quarterback. Rooney added to Tomlin’s declaration of Pickett reclaiming his “QB1” tag on Monday.
“The things about Kenny that we always like are his toughness, his competitiveness, his desire to be a winner. He has all of those sorts of intangibles,” Rooney said. “What I think we need him to be is, really, just continue to develop as a quarterback. Read the defense quickly. Get the offense into the best play for a given situation when he comes out of the huddle. He’s learned. He’s had some experience with that,” Rooney said.
• Lukewarm endorsements of maybe, possibly, bringing Mason Rudolph back as competition for Pickett. But no real indication that Rudolph would be retained with eyes toward him being a starter or indication that the franchise would be willing to outbid another legitimate suitor for his services.
“Mason did show what we’re capable of on offense with the personnel we have here right now,” Rooney said. “That’s encouraging in terms of Mason’s ceiling. I don’t know if we’ve seen his ceiling yet. We drafted him high for a reason. Felt like he had a lot of ability. I think we saw that. He’s probably going to have some options. It’s going to be a question of whether he wants to come back, whether we can make the deal to get him back. That being said, (we) still feel good about Kenny and his ability to evolve as well.”
In other words, Rooney is saying they’ll keep Rudolph — but only at the right price. More importantly, though, even if he doesn’t stay, Pickett will be juuuuuust fine!