PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Here were a number of topics other than Matt Canada or the offense Steelers President Art Rooney was asked about in his gathering with reporters on Thursday-including if he should still believe in the ‘Steelers Way’. Asked if going all in on a season would be preferable.
“Yeah, look, I think that the way we've done it, we give ourselves a chance to be competitive every year,” Rooney said Thursday. “And that means you have a chance to get into the tournament and have a chance to win it. So, I'm not saying that we wouldn't work hard if we take some chances if we thought we had something that we really could build on. But I don't see anything changing dramatically in that regard.”
Was 2022 a successful season?
“I mean, look, I think you want to see a team improve over the course of the season from start to finish,” Rooney said. “No matter what your record is, that's what you're shooting for, to get better as the season goes on. I thought we did that. Obviously, you'd rather not dig too deep a hole in the beginning of the season, which unfortunately, we did. But the fact that we were breaking in new quarterbacks – two of them, in fact – was something that I think was a factor in at least some of the difficulties we had in the first half of the season. But we weren't playing that well on the defensive side the first half of the season either. Giving up big plays early in games doesn't help.”
“So, I don't discount completely the first half of the season, you can't ignore it, but I think again, the key is to see that improvement over the course of the whole season. It’s encouraging, like I said.”
You traditionally don’t trade away players, especially a starter. Was it a tough decision to trade Chase Claypool to the Bears?
“Yeah, it was a tough decision,” Rooney said. “Yeah, it was. We obviously drafted Chase high and had high hopes for him. But we were at a point where, weighing all the positives and negatives of it, it seemed to make sense. So, we pulled the trigger on it.”
What are your thoughts on a neutral site AFC Championship game? Would you like to see that going forward?
“No, I hate the idea," Rooney said. "So, I wouldn’t like that at all. My sense is that if you put that up for a vote it wouldn't pass today, but who knows?”
What do you take away from Cincinnati’s recent success?
“They're an impressive team, no doubt about it,” Rooney said. “They've done well and they're going tobe hard to compete with in the future.”
With a new general manager, are there things that you would like to see change in how you handle free agency or the Draft?
“I think we're seeing changes already in the way Omar and Andy (Weidl) are preparing for the Draft. I think those guys have their own ways of doing things that are a little different from Kevin [Colbert]. Everybody's a little different. Certainly, we'll see some changes in the approach to the Draft. Just some of the things we're doing already this time of year are different. Having said that ,Kevin had a pretty successful run. So, there are a lot of different ways to get it done, right? I like the way Omar is going about it so far.”
What is your reaction to not having a lot of playoff success recently?
“You know, I'm not getting any younger,” Rooney said. “So, I’ll start with that. But in terms of looking backwards, I don't look too far backwards. I’ve got to look at next year and what we can do to get better next year. That's got to be our focus.”