Lost in many conversations about the future of the Steelers is the youth of their defense. Outside of Cam Heyward, Vince Williams, Joe Haden and the newly acquired Jon Bostic and Morgan Burnett, the Steelers' defenders are 25 or younger.
While the defense did fall apart in the playoff loss to the Jaguars, there were still many merits to a unit that ranked within the best of 2017 NFL defenses in several categories.
Dale Lolley pointed out this weekend that the team doesn't necessarily need the world's greatest defense to win a Super Bowl with this current roster. Dale's point was correct in that the Steelers of the mid-2000s who won two Super Bowls were extremely talented on defense, but lacked a superstar cast across the board on offense.
A decade later, the Steelers are in the reverse situation with a superstar offense and a defense that is trying to rebuild its way to being a dominant force. While Dale was correct that the Steelers don't need a stellar defense with their current assortment of offensive stars, I still wonder if the possibility of having such a defense is outside the grasp of this team's future.
Cam Heyward is the defense's most dominant presence right now, but the future could very well belong to Stephon Tuitt.
Tuitt missed several games in 2017 due to injury and only got to show flashes of what the team expected of his ability. But make no mistake, his disappointing three-sack total was not because he lacks the talent to be dominant at his position. We go to his 2017 film to show why the Steelers should absolutely be looking at Tuitt to have a better year in 2018:
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