Former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger again expressed his concern about the future of the “Steelers way” in his latest Footbahlin podcast episode. But his former teammate and ESPN’s Ryan Clark took issue with one major aspect of Roethlisberger’s point.
“Big Ben” suggested that the Steelers need to evolve to continue attracting high-end free agents to help win another NFL championship. Clark responded to the ex-quarterback by essentially arguing that’s never been part of Pittsburgh’s culture.
“All respect to Ben Roethlisberger — great teammate, Hall of Fame, first-ballot guy to me,” Clark said on ESPN’s NFL Live, via Steelers Depot’s Ross McCorkle. “But he’s wrong because when you look at free agent signings in Pittsburgh, you think of names like James Farrior, Jeff Hartings, Kevin Greene, who’s a Hall of Famer, and me.
“Ain’t no way I should be one of the biggest free-agent signings in a team’s entire history, but I am because the free agency was not where the Steelers built their team. They built their team through the draft.”
Of the 22 starters for the Steelers in their last Super Bowl victory during Feb. 2009, only four of them played games with another NFL organization before coming to Pittsburgh.
Ryan Clark Argues Steelers Have Never Been Big Players in NFL Free Agency
Honestly, Roethlisberger’s criticism was not very clear. He took issue with the team’s recent free agency approach and yet also seemed to suggest the “Steelers way” could be dying because there’s not a lot of leaders left who the team drafted.
“A team has to know when they’re playing the Pittsburgh Steelers that they’re gonna be hurting. Same way when I knew I was playing Baltimore that I was gonna be hurting. We need to play Baltimore every week, that needs to be our mentality as the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“We’re gonna go just absolutely pound these people into the ground in a clean way. And you know what, we’re gonna be hurting, but you’re gonna be hurting worse. And I don’t know how that keeps on,” said Roethlisberger.
“I don’t know if that’s been lost from players now cause there’s so few guys left. Cam, T.J., even Minkah, he’s been there for awhile, and he’s a leader, but he didn’t get drafted here. He got brought here.”
Later, Roethlisberger added: “You have to evolve. You can’t assume everybody wants to play for the Steelers.
“People used to want to play for Pittsburgh for a Super Bowl chance yearly.”
Ryan Clark targeted the last part of Roethlisberger’s criticism, clearly stating that the quarterback was wrong.
There may have been a handful of instances where free agents wanted to play for the Steelers. Clark named a few — himself and James Farrior were notable free additions for the 2008 championship (Farrior also started for the 2005 Super Bowl team).
But it’s not as if the Steelers have signed high-profiled players in NFL free agency and aren’t anymore. Free agency has never been a major part of Pittsburgh’s roster building plan.
Steelers Signing More Free Agents in Recent Years
There’s a lot of irony to the free agency comments from Roethlisberger and Clark. Because in more recent offseason, the Steelers actually have made free agency a bigger part of their roster building under general manager Omar Khan.
Despite all the rumors, pundits doubted whether the Steelers would make a big move at quarterback last offseason because it previously wasn’t the “Steelers way.” The franchise then made two big moves behind center to add both Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, the former of which came in free agency.
The Steelers also signed Patrick Queen to a franchise record-setting deal last offseason.
The best way to build a championship roster in the NFL is still through the draft. Primarily adding in free agency gets too expensive.
But the Steelers haven’t been afraid to aggressively attack their needs in free agency over the last couple years. Going forward, they’ll just have to attract those free agents with other things besides recent playoff success because that hasn’t been there for the Steelers lately.
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