NFL Playoff Preview
No Guarantees
By Jerry DiPaola

Who among us – other than the seriously deluded – believed the Steelers could duplicate their record-setting 15-1 season of a year ago?

Sustained success in the National Football League is not easily attained, due to parity, injuries and the way a ball with two pointed ends sometimes will bounce.

But did anyone actually think that the Steelers would multiply their defeats by five before Christmas and be wondering what turns of fate would deliver them to the playoffs? Wondering? There were more than a few sets of fingers crossed as the team headed into their Christmas Eve game in Cleveland.

The Steelers are not the team they were a year ago when they were one victory from the Super Bowl, and it’s not difficult to figure out why.

For a variety of reasons, the Steelers do not have the consistently powerful running game that then-rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger could use as a crutch. Big backs Jerome Bettis and Duce Staley have had their roles reduced by injuries and coach Bill Cowher's clear preference for the speed of Willie Parker.

Plus, injuries to Roethlisberger and left tackle Marvel Smith have displaced continuity on offense and forced players such as third-stringer Tommy Maddox and rookie left tackle Trai Essex into the starting lineup. At some point this season, three different players, including the seldom-used Charlie Batch who has ascended to No. 2 by default, started at quarterback.

But the line was especially vulnerable, in large part because depth was compromised when the Steelers failed to pay the dollars for a veteran free-agent blocker in the off-season.

Pairing the inexperienced Essex, who was a third-round pick in the eyes of the Steelers and few other teams, with first-year starting right tackle Max Starks was an occasional disaster. Meanwhile, right guard Kendall Simmons didn't immediately appear – a year after major knee surgery – as if he was ready to start dominating opponents.

At least former starting linemen and free-agent defectors Oliver Ross and Keydrick Vincent had previous starting experience and had remained healthy throughout last season.

Still, the line wasn’t the worst of the Steelers’ woes – at least, it recovered to send left guard Alan Faneca and center Jeff Hartings to the Pro Bowl.

What made the Steelers ordinary, compared to extraordinary in 2004, was the lack of a passing game – more specifically, a complementary player to Hines Ward.

The failure to re-sign Plaxico Burress can be explained logically in economic terms because it’s difficult – if not impossible – to pay two players huge dollars at one position; especially receiver, at least not without sacrificing seriously somewhere else on the roster (see Cardinals, Arizona). Ward, clearly, deserved the money; Burress, just as clearly, had more to prove.

But the football translation to such fiscal responsibility is that the Steelers had no one on the other side of the formation to take the pressure off Ward, who was not at his best in 2005 anyway.

Antwaan Randle El and newcomer Cedrick Wilson failed to step up and adequately replace Burress, who topped 70 receptions and 1,000 yards, and found the end zone with regularity, with the New York Giants. El and Wilson did not come close to matching those totals combined. Throw in a defense where linebackers James Farrior and Joey Porter played hurt through much of the season and inconsistent special teams play and you have a good explanation for their mid-season stumble and no guarantee of playoffs after 7/8ths of the season.

Which brings us to the off-season and what coach Bill Cowher, president Art Rooney II and director of football operations Kevin Colbert plan to do about their team’s problems.

The Steelers have salary cap, age and contract issues to resolve before they go to training camp in 2006.

Three starting members of the defensive unit are eligible for unrestricted free agency – defensive end Kim von Oelhoffen, free safety Chris Hope and cornerback Deshea Townsend. Of the three, von Oelhoffen and Townsend are 35- and 30-years-old. Hope shows flashes of promise, but he misses far too many tackles for Cowher’s taste.

The good news is that those players’ weaknesses -- age and spotty play -- may make them easier to re-sign, although von Oelhoffen is playing exceptionally well and his agent will seek appropriate compensation.

Other free agents the Steelers hope to keep include special-teams ace and backup linebacker Clint Kriewaldt and backup defensive end Brett Keisel.

Also, Batch has no contract for next season. Given the real possibility that Maddox will be released before the Steelers pay him a $100,000 roster bonus in March, Batch has increased leverage. Also, what do you do with backup wide receiver Quincy Morgan, also a free agent? Can he become a starter in Pittsburgh after two teams – the Browns and Cowboys -- gave up on him?

A tricky situation exists at running back where Verron Haynes is unrestricted and Jerome Bettis may retire, leaving only Parker and the oft-injured Staley to man what has been a deep position.

Randle El’s contract expires after the season, too. Do the Steelers offer him a new one at what certainly would be a bargain for the team? Or, do they allow him to leave and hope to find the elusive replacement for Burress in the draft or free agency?

The trouble with drafting wide receivers is that the Steelers failed miserably when selecting Troy Edwards, Danny Farmer and Fred Gibson. Plus, team officials were not eager to offer a new contract to Burress last year; and don’t seem all that enthusiastic about tendering one to El presently. Both were drafted wide receivers.

Signing an inexpensive free agent (example: Wilson) offers no guaranteed solution, either.

If only the Steelers could have just said, “Please come home for Christmas, Plex; all is forgiven.”

Jerry DiPaola is an assistant editor at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, and the NFL Editor for PSR.