Aging Process
Steelers Linebackers Getting Older
By Jerry DiPaola

Steelers coach Bill Cowher, director of football operations Kevin Colbert and president Art Rooney II and his father Dan are markedly savvier and wiser in the ways of the NFL than anyone in this town writing or speaking for a living about sports. In fact, it's not even a contest.

The score between Cowher and any reporter in this town on the number of drafts orchestrated is 15-0. Dan Rooney has been involved in drafts since the 1950s, before many of the people who have criticized his teams were even born.

That said, it doesn't preclude the media from raising some questions about how things are done inside the meeting rooms of Steelers headquarters on the South Side, especially in the spring. Why not? It's not our money.

A serious look at the team's roster -- as it is currently constructed early in a season that remains awash in great promise -- might cause a thinking person to scratch his head and wonder, "Why?"

Let's see ...

The Steelers play a 3-4 defense. Cowher insists on it, actually. Doesn't that mean that more than one-third of the starting defense is comprised of linebackers? You wouldn't know it by the way they draft.

Here's something I bet most Steelers fans don't know:

Since 2000, the Steelers have selected six linebackers in seven drafts. What's more, the only two taken before the fourth round -- second-rounders Kendrell Bell and Alonzo Jackson -- are no longer with the team.

Colbert and his staff were sharp enough to dig starting linebackers Clark Haggans (fifth) and Larry Foote (fourth) out of the second day of the draft proceedings, but the aging process has gone on with little help from the colleges.

Inside linebacker James Farrior will be 32 at the outset of this season's playoffs. Joey Porter is approaching 30 (he'll be there in the spring), with a recent history of surgical procedures on his knees. Haggans never has played better than he is playing right now, but he will be 30 in January. Backup Clint Kriewaldt is 30.

Of the other backups -- James Harrison, Arnold Harrison and Rian Wallace -- only Wallace was drafted (fifth) and only James Harrison looks capable of assuming a regular, starting job anytime soon.

That's not to say that the current starting linebackers are no longer effective, or that they can't be counted on this season and in 2007. It's just to point out that the Steelers have surprisingly ignored the position in recent drafts.

The future effects of such inaction sits somewhere in the unknown.

A look at the seven drafts preceding 2000 -- from Cowher's rookie season of 1992 to 1999 -- shows that the Steelers drafted 14 linebackers in eight drafts.

There were no first-rounders among them, but Levon Kirkland and Chad Brown (second round), Jason Gildon (three), Earl Holmes (fourth), Carlos Emmons (seventh), Mike Vrabel and Porter (third) have proven to be good NFL players.

Where would the Steelers have been without some of those players? Probably not at a Super Bowl parade in Pittsburgh in February.

Contrast the attention shown the linebacking position with what the Steelers have done on the offensive line.

There is no arguing that the Steelers are only as good as their offensive line. Never was that statement more apparent than in the 9-0 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars earlier this season.

Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was not treated to the type of protection that someone who has had two surgeries in the past four months needs.

He was sacked twice and threw two interceptions late in the game in a desperate attempt to ignite the offense. The Steelers were so woefully inept on offense that they never even moved close enough to try a field goal, penetrating no farther than the Jaguars' 46.

How Roethlisberger escaped Jacksonville without suffering further injury is a mystery. He never looked like the confident quarterback who led the Steelers to 26 victories in the first 30 starts of his career.

The result was the team's first shutout on a dry field since 2000, and the first time since 1981 that the reigning Super Bowl champion failed to score in a game.

What was even more distressing to Steelers fans was the lack of a running game. Willie Parker, anointed the No. 1 back in the wake of Jerome Bettis' retirement and Duce Staley's failure to adequately recover from his past injuries, rushed 11 times for 20 yards. Overall, the team managed 26 on the ground -- a low for the Cowher era. Thought the team ran the ball successfully the following week against Cincinnati, it is worth taking a look at the future of the offensive line.

Age is creeping along the line -- center Jeff Hartings is 34 and left guard Alan Faneca will be 30 in December -- but the Steelers have taken steps to reduce its effects.

Since 2000, they have chosen 11 offensive linemen in seven drafts, including starting left tackle Marvel Smith in the second round, No. 1 right tackle Max Starks in the third and starting right guard Kendall Simmons in the first. Plus, they have been diligent in mining young line talent in all rounds, including Trai Essex (third), Chris Kemoeautu and Marvin Philip (sixth), Chukky Okobi (fifth) and Willie Colon (fourth).

They were prepared when right tackle Oliver Ross and right guard Keydrick Vincent left a 15-1 team in 2005 to join the Arizona Cardinals and Baltimore Ravens, via free agency. Starks replaced Ross and Kemoeautu and Okobi have filled the depth void left by Vincent.

They are not similarly prepared at the equally important position of linebacker.

Jerry DiPaola is an assistant editor at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.