If there is one position in the NFL where a team can never have too much depth, it's at cornerback.
But the Steelers went through the 2022 NFL Draft without adding a cornerback to their depth chart, the third consecutive year the team has not selected a player at that critical position.
Welcome to the NFL in 2022.
Some might feel the Steelers decided to go the free agency route given their past failures at the position. Since outgoing GM Kevin Colbert joined the team in 2000, the Steelers have drafted 18 cornerbacks.
Some, such as Ike Taylor, William Gay, Bryant McFadden and Cameron Sutton have been at least moderate hits. Others, such as Artie Burns, have been disappointments.
But the team also has rarely addressed the position early in the draft. Burns was the only first-round cornerback in Colbert's tenure. Burns and Ricardo Colclough were the only corners selected in the top 50 picks of their respective drafts.
In a league, however, where over half of the starting cornerbacks began their careers on another team, acquiring starting cornerbacks in free agency seems to be more the norm.
"There's two ways we add to our talent pool, free agency, and draft, and we felt really comfortable with what we were able to do with free agency in both rooms," Mike Tomlin said of the offensive line and at cornerback.
The Steelers went the free agent route, adding Levi Wallace from the Bills and re-signing Ahkello Witherspoon, a player for whom they had traded a fifth-round draft pick at the end of training camp for last season to acquire from the Seahawks. Both signed two-year, $8-million deals.
But both of those deals were only for two years. Considering Sutton, a 2017 third-round draft pick, was re-signed to a two-year, $9-million deal last year, the Steelers don't seem to have a long-term plan or solutions at the position.
What the Steelers have at cornerback is a short-term plan with three good, but not necessarily great, players.
Joe Haden, the team's top cornerback the past five seasons, remains a free agent. None of the Steelers' current corners have Haden's gravitas as a true No. 1 player at the position. But the question then becomes if such a player is needed to win in today's NFL?
And considering Haden had a post on social media earlier this week showing his empty home in Pittsburgh, it doesn't appear there are any plans in place to bring the 33-year-old back for another season.
What does that mean for the Steelers in 2022?
The trio of Sutton, Witherspoon and Wallace will be the team's top three corners in some shape, fashion or form.
They can either have Witherspoon and Wallace be the starters in the base defense with Sutton playing the slot, or they can have Sutton play in the base defense with either Witherspoon or Wallace opposite him and slide Sutton inside in the nickel and dime.
There are positives and negatives to any of those scenarios.
Sutton led the Steelers in coverage snaps last season both on the outside and inside due to Haden missing time. He ranked 56th among NFL cornerbacks in adjusted yards allowed per coverage snap, which accounts for touchdowns and interceptions on 708 snaps outside and 204 in the slot.
As a result of his play in the slot, Sutton allowed a 66.7 percent completion percentage on targets in his coverage -- it's always higher for slot corners, who face quicker, short throws. But he also is a strong player in run support, an area where Witherspoon isn't as solid.
Witherspoon languished on the bench early in the season after coming over from the Seahawks largely due to his lack of physicality. That kept him from being among the team's top special teams players, meaning he had to wait for an injury to Haden to finally get on the field.
But Witherspoon proved to be the team's best player in coverage, leading all NFL corners in completion percentage allowed at 37.8 percent -- though it was a much smaller sample size.
The Steelers are hopeful a full training camp and offseason in their program will get Witherspoon up to speed to play with the physicality they desire at the position.
Wallace is a balance of the two. In his four seasons with the Bills, he never allowed a passer rating of greater than 85.5. Last season, opponents completed just 58 percent of their passes into his coverage. He ranked 10th among corners in Adjusted Yards allowed per coverage snap.
The Steelers also brought back Arthur Maulet to share slot snaps, while safety Damontae Kazee, signed immediately after the draft had been completed, also can play in the slot.
That's why, while the Steelers' additions on their offensive line in free agency got much of the attention this offseason -- particularly given the team's struggles there last season -- the team wasn't aggressive adding at cornerback, either.
After all, only one of the top three cornerbacks for either of last year's two Super Bowl teams, the Rams and Bengals, was actually drafted by those teams -- David Long. The rest were all acquired in free agency. And only one, the Rams' Jalen Ramsey, was a high-priced player.
It's become the nature of the position.
