Bill Cowher on the notion of a Steelers rebuild in 2021

Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher joined Mark Madden on 105.9 The X on Wednesday. He’ll be part of CBS’s coverage of Super Bowl LV. Along with previewing the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Madden asked Cowher for his thoughts on the state of his former team.

Specifically, whether it is time for the Steelers to rebuild after their collapse over the last six weeks of the 2020 season. Not to mention that ignominious debacle of a playoff loss to the Cleveland Browns.

“I hate to use the word ‘rebuild’ because there is a winning culture there,” Cowher said. “There are a lot of good young players on the defensive side of the ball. Good young receivers.”

Aside from the pass-catchers, though, Cowher says most of the analysis is going to have to come on the offensive roster, starting with how to handle Ben Roethlisberger’s $41 million cap hit. And with those who are blocking for him.

“A lot of decisions have to be made, certainly, with the offensive line retooling there,” Cowher continued. “But there is a winning culture. Stability with coaches and front office. Those things matter. You may have a year where it doesn’t end the way you want. But I don’t think it is a total rebuild at all.”

It sounds like Cowher could be describing what his 2003 team went through. After two straight seasons featuring playoff victories, the group flailed through a 6-10 record. That allowed for the franchise to draft high enough to get Roethlisberger (11th overall) in the first round. By the end of the 2004 season, they were a 15-1 club.

So it was almost a one-year, one-man rebuild at quarterback. But unless Kevin Colbert conjures a lightning strike twice in a row, Mike Tomlin may have to grind through his rebuild a little longer than that.

It’s likely to look more like those three years Cowher endured between 1998-2000 (7-9, 6-10, 9-7). The team missed the playoffs in each of those seasons. Tomlin’s teams have failed to win a playoff game four years in a row. They’ve qualified twice during that time.

The difference is that those three Cowher teams followed four consecutive seasons (1994-97) featuring playoff victories.

The three wandering seasons to wrap up the ’90s sent Three Rivers Stadium out with a whimper, meaning its last postseason game was the AFC Championship game loss to the Denver Broncos to conclude the 1997 campaign.

It may not have felt like a “total rebuild” during that time either. After all, key figures such as Jerome Bettis, Kordell Stewart and Jason Gildon bridged that gap between the AFC championship teams of 1997 and 2001 over the valley of losing during the end of the decade.

However, players such as Joey Porter, Alan Faneca, Hines Ward, Plaxico Burress, Deshea Townsend, Marvel Smith and Aaron Smith were all drafted between ‘98-’00. Dan Kreider was an undrafted free agent in 2000 as well.

So a “rebuild” was never truly acknowledged because so much focus was on Bettis’ success and trying to make Stewart functional at quarterback again. But the reality was that a roster reconstruction was quietly happening under the surface.

Of that group, only Gildon and Stewart were gone by the time Roethlisberger made his debut.

Cowher’s three losing seasons that we mentioned (‘98, ‘99, ‘03) were the only ones of Cowher’s 15-year career. Tomlin has never dipped below .500. But Cowher never went four years without a playoff victory.

It feels like Tomlin may be staring at a fifth in a row in 2021. “Total rebuild” or not.