Injury

The Steelers' Four-Quarterback Experiment Is Already Failing, and They're Too Stubborn to Admit It

4m ago

Let me be crystal clear about what I'm seeing in Pittsburgh. The Steelers are not "set" on keeping four quarterbacks. That phrase is a cop-out. That phrase is what organizations say when they have no idea what they're doing and they're hoping nobody notices. The Steelers know they have a problem. They know that keeping four quarterbacks on an NFL roster in 2024 is a waste of resources, cap space, and practice reps. Yet they're going to pretend this is some grand organizational strategy, and that's where they're getting this completely wrong.

Here's the fundamental issue that everyone in football understands except apparently the Pittsburgh front office. You cannot develop four quarterbacks simultaneously. You cannot give meaningful reps to four guys and expect any of them to be ready when their moment comes. You cannot allocate roster spots to that many signal-callers and not sacrifice depth at positions where you're actually going to need help. The Steelers are going to waste an entire season convincing themselves that they're being smart and flexible, when what they're really doing is kicking the can down the road because they're afraid to make a difficult decision.

Let's start with Russell Wilson. The guy is 35 years old. He has Hall of Fame credentials. He has a Super Bowl ring. And he absolutely still has something left in the tank if you put him in the right situation. Wilson is the guy who is supposed to be competing for the starting job in Pittsburgh. He's the veteran presence. He's the guy who has played in big moments and won when it counted. So far, so good. That's a reasonable building block for a team that wants to compete in the AFC North. But here's where the Steelers' thinking falls apart: they're not really committed to Wilson as their guy, or they would have given him guaranteed money and a clear path to the job.

Then you have Justin Fields, who the Steelers acquired from the Bears in a trade just last offseason. Fields is 25 years old. He has arm talent. He can make plays with his legs. The organization invested resources to get him. So now they're sitting on this young quarterback who they gave up draft capital for, and they're not giving him a real opportunity to earn the starting job or prove that the trade was justified. That's organizational malpractice. If you're going to trade for a young quarterback, you commit to him. You give him a path. You don't keep him in some kind of purgatory where he's neither starter nor backup, but stuck in some weird middle ground of uncertainty.

Then there's Kyle Pickett, the young guy who was supposed to be Pittsburgh's future. Pickett was a third-round pick just two years ago. The Steelers were supposed to be developing him. They were supposed to be coaching him up. They were supposed to be building around him. Instead, they've added multiple other quarterbacks to the mix, which sends a clear message: we don't believe in Kyle Pickett. We think we made a mistake. We're not going to invest in developing you. That's a terrible way to handle any young player, let alone one you drafted relatively early.

And then there's whoever the fourth quarterback is going to be. It might be some undrafted free agent. It might be someone on a practice squad. It might be somebody they trade for at the last minute. The point is that they're going to waste a roster spot on somebody who has almost no chance of contributing to the team in any meaningful way. They're going to take reps from other positions. They're going to waste coaching resources. They're going to create confusion in the quarterback room that filters down to the entire offense.

This is not a new problem in Pittsburgh. The Steelers have a long history of being unable to make difficult personnel decisions. They hold onto veterans too long. They keep draft picks around too long hoping they'll develop. They refuse to admit mistakes. And now they're applying that same organizational cowardice to the quarterback position, and it's going to cost them in 2024. Let me tell you exactly how.

First, there's the cap space issue. Four quarterbacks on one roster represents a massive allocation of resources that could be used to improve the defense, to bolster the offensive line, or to add weapons at receiver and tight end. The Steelers are not a team that can afford to waste cap money on backup quarterbacks. They're competing in the toughest division in football. They need to be running plays with every single dollar they have. Instead, they're tied up with roster spots that should be going to defensive ends, cornerbacks, or safeties.

Second, there's the quarterback room chaos. When you have four quarterbacks, you have four different agendas. You have guys competing for reps. You have guys worried about their own status instead of focusing on getting better. You have coaching staff members who have to divide their attention four different ways. That's not development. That's organizational incompetence. Every championship team in football has clarity at the quarterback position. The Steelers are heading in the opposite direction.

Third, and this is the big one, the Steelers are sending a message to their entire organization that they don't know what they're doing. Nobody in that locker room believes that four quarterbacks is a real strategy. Everybody knows that this is a sign of panic. This is a sign that the front office doesn't trust their draft picks. This is a sign that the front office doesn't have a vision. And when a team shows that kind of uncertainty at the most important position in football, it filters down to every position. Defensive players start wondering if they're on a team with a plan. Offensive linemen wonder if they should be looking for new jobs. Receivers wonder if there's going to be any consistency in the offense.

So who's the odd man out? That's the question everyone wants answered. And here's my verdict: it doesn't matter who gets cut, because they should have never put themselves in this position in the first place. If I'm forced to pick, Fields is gone by training camp. He's the most recent addition. He hasn't proven anything in a Steelers uniform. The organization is going to convince itself that he's not a fit or that he needs more development, and they're going to move on. But before that happens, Pickett probably gets traded or released, because the Steelers aren't going to admit that they made a mistake with him. And the fourth quarterback is replaced by somebody cheaper.

The real answer is that the Steelers need to pick their guy right now. They need to commit to Wilson as the starter, give Fields a legitimate backup opportunity, and move on from Pickett and anybody else. That's how you run a professional organization. That's how you develop quarterbacks. That's how you compete in the NFL. Instead, they're going to bumble through this offseason acting like they've got some grand master plan, and by September, they're going to panic and make a move that should have been made months ago.

This is not being decisive. This is not being creative. This is being afraid. The Steelers are going to waste time, waste money, and waste roster spots on a strategy that was flawed from the beginning. The NFL does not reward indecision, especially at quarterback. The teams that win are the ones that commit. The teams that lose are the ones that try to have it every which way, and that's exactly what Pittsburgh is doing right now.

VERDICT: The Steelers' four-quarterback approach is organizational cowardice dressed up as flexibility. Cut it down to three, commit to your starter, and get on with it. Anything less is just delaying a decision that should have already been made.