Welcome to the terrible take mini podcast telling Steelers nation what's on our minds.

I'm Joe Clark.

Tomorrow's the Super Bowl.

It got me thinking just how long it's been since the Steelers, you know, I've obviously played in the game, but really just how long it's been since they were serious contenders.

It's now probably been six years since Pittsburgh has ever had a team that really felt like they could contend once they got into the

post season. And that was in 2018 when they lost the division around of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The curating injury of Ron Ch's here really hurt that team.

I still believe they're probably in the Super Bowl that season if she's year doesn't go down.

But it's been far too long since the Steelers have been, you know, really at that Super Bowl level.

Whether it's quarterback play, offensive line play, um, quarterback play with an

aging Ben Rothlisberger or, you know, Kenny Pickett now still struggling it up to NFL there's always been one major flaw

holding the team back for me good enough to compete. Then if you look at the team where they are now

and the salary cap error and quarterback huge 30 plus million dollar contracts.

The sailors have the luxury of not needing to pay a quarterback 30 plus million a year.

And they've shown, you know, they can win enough with Pickett, you know, get to the playoffs or

Mason Rudolph if they bring him back.

So they're not going to be paying a quarterback a ton of money.

And last off season they got a little bit aggressive in free agency.

They spent to bring an

Isaac Samalo was kind of a big splash they added Patrick Peterson and it's

really not the sewage philosophy to spend big on free agents without a big

money quarterback in the room I think personally I've come around and endorsing the idea of the team to, you know, spend a little bit more than they usually do in free agency.

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