I can see JJ Watt moving on from Houston.
I can see JJ Watt enjoying playing with his brother.
I can't see the money working out . . . and I'm not sure in 2 seasons Pittsburgh will be one of the first places someone prioritizing winning will run to go.
They always find ways to rework the cap. Bud will be gone so thats why adding Watt is a possibility.
As for our offense, maybe Ben stays another year. Right now he is going to cost us 40mil next season. If by the end of the season he and the team feel like he has more left in the tank than just 1 more season then maybe we extend his deal another year and restructure it so we can cut that in half. I am sure if this is done(extending him.another year) then that 3rd year he will take a huge paycut. That would be the main reason for us to do that.
That allows us to pay Watt, Minkah and others that are due big raises.
If we dont keep Ben, there is plenty of QBs we could add by then. We also dont know if Rudolph can be that guy ...its 2 years from now. He wasnt that bad last year considering what he had to deal with all year and that was with no experience and our offense not having many weapons around him. So in a few years he would have way more experience and our Offense will already be much better
This 2 year window for the Steelers that alot talk about is overblown. Yeah its where we are at our best right now. But we have seen this alot. We have a ton of good young players that will help keep us competitive. We already know DJ and Claypool will give us at least 2 good WRs(as well as James Washington) if we lose Juju. We will prob have drafted another RB by then. So we just need to draft OL in round 1 this year and early the next to make sure they dont drop off completely in a few seasons.
As for the defense, we know theyll still have Watt, Bush, Fitz, and Heyward/Tuitt. Nelson will still be under contract as one CB, Haden will prob be gone. Hilton prob gone. Sutton should.be able to replace Hilton. And we have Justin Layne as another CB. We will be drafting another. There is Alex Highsmith who could/should be a decent enough starter.
Point is we are spread out with talent on both sides of the ball that have youth plus vet to the point we shouldnt see what happened in the 2010's. When we kept our D together too long and kept missing on their replacements. Not just the LBs in the first round to not replace what Farrior, Porter, Harrison, etc brought. but not being able to replace the impact Ike and Polamalu had in the secondary. All we had was Tuitt and Heyward the years that our offense was great. That wont be the case after these two years are up. The situation we will be facing is QB. And with there being so many better QBs throughout the league now compared to the past...i think we should.be fine in finding someone good enough. Back then, there were only a handful of franchise QBs. Now at least half of the league has found a franchise QB.