Kovacevic: DeCastro cut puts onus on young O-line, and not all are ready

Remember when the Steelers invited free-agent guard Trai Turner to the South Side late last week, and it'd been universally assumed it had something to do with succeeding David DeCastro?

Well, it did have to do with a guard, but it didn't have to do with DeCastro.

Better sit down for this one, kids.

I'm told, by an impeccable source, that the initial motivation for summoning Turner was a general dissatisfaction among the coaching staff with the offseason regimen of young Kevin Dotson and that, as a result, there was a very real worry that he'd be a viable candidate to start at left guard.

Uh-huh, really.

No, I didn't see that coming, either. I loved Dotson's rookie performance in 2020 -- all that aggression, all that brute strength -- to the extent I was deeply disappointed when Matt Feiler returned from injury for the playoffs and immediately was handed his job back. I wanted to see more of Dotson then, and I couldn't wait to see more in 2021. 

But Dotson, apparently, could -- and did -- wait to take his offseason seriously, in the eyes of management. I wasn't told any specifics. Just that management, with all the other uncertainty on the offensive line, was in no mood to wait for Dotson to get set straight.

Now, of course, there's also this little DeCastro development as of Thursday afternoon.

Oh, and Turner being signed to a one-year contract about an hour later.

I'll get to those in a bit, but I've first got this to say: These youngsters had better get it together in a raging hurry. All of them.

Obviously, that begins with Dotson. Whatever got into him since January needs exorcised at a Casey Hampton-like pace before training camp. Because he can't be optional. He just can't. What he flashed last season was too promising to ignore in this context.

But it goes for all the rest, too.

Zach Banner needs to show the surgically repaired knee's ready to go and, believe it or not, even if he's got all of one NFL start to his credit, he just might be forced to lead this group. As he illustrated even as a non-participant in OTAs and minicamp, he's not shy about speaking his mind. Like, at all.

Chuks Okorafor needs to make a seamless transition from right tackle to left and, though he's the near-silent, serious sort, he'll have to break that shell as needed. He'll take the field as a fourth-year NFL guy with more experience than most.

B.J. Finney needs to press Dotson harder than anyone else. Meaning through his camp performance. And from the sound of everything above, he now might do so as the favorite to start at left guard. I'd be OK with that. This is a solid football player, and he's as gritty as it gets on the O-line.

Kendrick Green ... man, is it even fair to ask a third-round pick to start at center? Because if it isn't, then it'll be Finney, and that could create more problems than it solves.

Then there's right guard.

Look, it's now moot to debate whether or not DeCastro could've been his best self. Or even an asset in this setting, where his experience would've towered above everyone else's. He's about to undergo surgery on his right ankle, per agent Drew Rosenhaus, and it's the same ankle that'd been giving him trouble -- along with a chest injury -- all through the 2020 season. He might not get healthy enough. He might not want to keep playing even if he does, as I'd been reporting for months now, and as he confirmed Thursday to Joe Starkey of 93.7 The Fan, saying, “Gotta see how the surgery goes. But I’d have no problem calling it a day and moving on with my life.”

I can't say if Turner's the answer in his stead. He's got five Pro Bowls on the back of his card, but also a bunch of missed GPs. The guy's missed 16 games over the past four seasons, the equivalent of a full season until itself. That's a worry unto itself, and it's why the Chargers made him a cap casualty and he had to accept a one-year term from the Steelers.

But I do know this: Neither DeCastro's absence, nor Turner's arrival -- nor, for that matter, almost anything related to this offense -- will matter much without Dotson, Banner, Okorafor and Green exceeding expectations. And immensely so.

• Make no mistake: There's zero acrimony in any of this DeCastro scenario, and not just because of the sweet tweet above.

It couldn't be clearer now that DeCastro came to the Heinz Field minicamp a week ago to have a conversation with the Steelers about his immediate future, including his ankle, and that all concerned then took a few days to determine the next course. DeCastro wasn't about to retire and forfeit his full pay of $14,297,500. So he instead communicated his plan to the Steelers, and they responded with a release that he had to be expecting, since it'd save the team $8.75 million in his base salary and cap hit.

Feels like courtesy was extended on either end of the equation.

• My own immense respect for DeCastro, as a player and as a professional off the field, could be collected in a list of all his individual accolades, or I could just share this magnificent moment from five years ago in Cincinnati:

That's quintessential Dave right there. He hated Vontaze Burfict and had told me so countless times. In that setting, with neither of them remotely engaged with whatever Le'Veon Bell was doing with the ball, both went at each other on a sequence that no one who witnessed it -- and heard it -- will ever forget.

One of the great guards of his generation. A worthy successor to Alan Faneca in every way. He'll be missed.

• The pain these guys endure ... this will be DeCastro's third surgery on the same ankle. Maurkice Pouncey retired in large part because he'd had five surgeries on the same ankle. Eventually, the mind wins out over the body.

• Turner had his own pain to endure in 2020, missing seven of the Chargers' first eight games with a nagging groin injury. He told SiriusXM NFL Network this past Saturday, “I’m back at 100 percent. Last year was a rough season for me, with injuries and just overall COVID. But hey, you know, you go through things and situations arise, but you work it and you get through it. So I’m feeling good. I’m just ready to come back and have a phenomenal season.”

He's capable. Five Pro Bowls don't come by accident.

Here's the full conversation:

• Deep dive on Turner right here by our Chris Carter.

• More is needed. And I don't just mean the O-line, though another veteran starter would be plenty welcome. There's also a hard need for a third edge rusher, a third safety and, depending on whether one believes in James Pierre, another outside corner. But those first three for sure.

The $8.75 million in cap hit savings from DeCastro's cut -- minus whatever amount Turner's getting, pending that becoming known -- will help on all fronts, but don't think too big. In other words, if one signing is Justin Houston, don't expect Malik Hooker, too. Kevin Colbert's total cap room is probably in the range of $12 million, he's got another $2 million that goes to the practice squad, and he insists on entering every season with at least $5 million in flexibility.

• No one will seek advice from this direction, but I'd be viewing any upgrade on defense as a luxury compared to further addressing the O-line. This could be Ben Roethlisberger's final season, and it'll definitely be Najee Harris' first. Those can't go to waste.

• Nothing about the joint NFL/NFLPA decision to bar the Steelers from conducting training camp at Saint Vincent College makes any sense.

I don't want to hear about the small locker rooms or weight room or anything else that might've gone into this. Not when the players themselves, the apparent focus in this scenario, are almost certain to be fully vaccinated by then. And I know the latter because they're being given virtually no choice by the league's highly restrictive regulations that'll be implemented only for non-vaccinated players. 

It's get the shot or get ostracized.

Both the league and the union know this. They also know the Steelers rated among the top handful of teams in terms of being vaccinated with a count of 51 as recently as last week.

Just bizarre.

• This had to be the union's doing. Just had to. There's no way Art Rooney II goes public with his intent of going to Latrobe, which he did way back in January, without having at least a preliminary blessing from the league. But I'm hearing the union's putting up resistance in a lot of areas as related to emerging from the pandemic, and this feels like another piece of that.

• I'll close on a hopeful note, with this Instagram post by Dotson of his working out a couple weeks ago on the South Side:

Hey, he's going a lot harder than I am this month.