There are two places where every NFL fan wants to be this time of year. On one side, you have an eager group of fans who believe that this is the year their team can win a championship. On the other side, you have a group of fans who understand their team is bad enough to get a potential franchise savior in the draft.
No matter where a fan is, there’s some kind of hope involved in these two scenarios. Then there’s the NFL’s purgatory, which resides somewhere in the middle.
The Minnesota Vikings used to live in this area. They were good enough to compete but never for a Super Bowl. They were flawed, but not flawed enough to get the player who could make a difference. The Vikings kept pushing for the brass ring, knowing they would never actually hang on to it.
That feeling shaded everything that they did.
As the Vikings prepare for this season, they finally have a sense that they can be legitimate championship contenders. Still, it’s important to remember where they’ve been, and you can see it in the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Steelers have had a busy offseason, but not the kind familiar to championship teams. Two starting quarterback options on their roster were quickly winnowed down to zero when Justin Fields signed with the New York Jets and Russell Wilson joined the New York Giants.
With no quarterback on the roster, the Steelers threw themselves at Aaron Rodgers the same way the 41-year-old quarterback wished the Vikings would have thrown themselves at him earlier in the offseason. Still, his eventual signing didn’t come with the Holy smokes, we’re going for it! reaction the Vikings had when Brett Favre signed in 2009. Instead, it had the feeling of a front-office staff trying to save their jobs.
It’s how the Vikings operated after Teddy Bridgewater suffered a career-altering leg injury just before the 2016 season. With Minnesota feeling like they were approaching a championship window, general manager Rick Spielman traded for Sam Bradford, thinking he could help the Vikings win immediately.
In this scenario, Spielman may have been right. Minnesota’s defense was built around a cast of young players. The offense had some questions, but also a pair of dynamic receivers (Stefon Diggs, Adam Thielen) on the way. They’d throw Dalvin Cook into the mix the following year, and the Vikings had the bones of a team that would go to the 2017 NFC Championship game.
Kyle Rudolph believes that if Bradford had never gotten hurt, the Vikings could have won the Super Bowl. However, that may have led to what happened next.
The Vikings got older but never adjusted to their needs. Kirk Cousins was supposed to be the final piece when they signed him in 2018, but they missed the playoffs in his first season. Even when the Vikings won a playoff game the following year, a humiliation in San Francisco prompted Mike Zimmer to declare it was “a young man’s game,” perhaps taking a shot at his aging roster.
Minnesota attempted to adapt with a slew of young players in 2020, but the win-now moves were more about reaching .500 than winning a championship. Cousins’ contract didn’t make things easier, but they signed Patrick Peterson and Bashaud Breeland to ensure the ship didn’t sink.
That’s what is happening with the Steelers. Mike Tomlin is a Hall of Fame coach, but his last Super Bowl victory came when Arch Manning was four years old. Even those teams had a string of double-digit-win seasons in the mid-2010s, but Pittsburgh has won over 10 games just once since 2018. The Steelers will preach continuity, but there’s a point when running it back feels like it has run its course.
It all came to a head this offseason. While the Rodgers signing was the biggest headline, the Steelers made a win-now move to acquire D.K. Metcalf in a trade with the Seattle Seahawks. Another move comes on Monday when the Steelers sent 28-year-old Minkah Fitzpatrick in exchange for 31-year-old Jalen Ramsey, which adds to a roster that was the third-oldest in football coming out of last season’s training camp.
Of course, the Vikings were one of two teams that were older than the Steelers last year, but they feel like they’re in a different situation. J.J. McCarthy’s rookie contract allows for some flexibility, and the Vikings took full advantage by spending more than any other team during free agency. While that strategy could cause some headaches moving on, this is adding to a team that went 14-3 last season and has made several improvements this offseason.
When you look at the Steelers, you ask yourself where they got better. There isn’t a clear answer.
Swapping out George Pickens for Metcalf, Fields for Rodgers, and Fitzpatrick for Ramsey feels like a team that’s spinning its wheels. While the front office expects everything to come up in their favor, playing the slots often doesn’t pan out in the NFL.
It leaves the Steelers with a big name but a likely disappointing result, with their fans stuck in the middle. The Vikings found their way out of that place and are now looking for bigger things next season.