Kipper : What Should The #Steelers Have Done Differently This Offseason?

It's a legit question that we've all been asking ourselves. We've voiced our displeasure at the way talent has been disappearing from the Steelers while we see no legit talent replacements. We see a very old team already, that's not getting any younger. We've seen drafts under Kevin Colbert without Bill Cowher holding his hand, fail to produce enough talent that is needed for a team that builds through the draft to flourish in the present and future.
Despite the recent track record of Kevin Colbert's drafts, the Pittsburgh Steelers could be in better shape today if they had made some different decisions in this Offseason. Some decisions that aren't going to be popular with the fans, but you can't use fan opinion to build teams. Female fans liked Mark Malone because he looked like Magnum P.I. (Tom Selleck) despite his inability to throw a pass that would hit the numbers on the chest.
Here's what I would've done in this offseason..
Cut :
James Harrison
Brett Kiesel
Ike Taylor
not Resigned Plaxico Burress
Basically if you are over the age of 32 and have a viable replacement under you, you're gone. you're beast years are behind you and whatever is left on your contract is money that you will never match the value for.
Add/Replace :
James Harrison -> Elvis Dumervil
Brett Kiesel -> Cameron Heyward
Ike Taylor -> Keenan Lewis
Plaxico Burress -> Mike Wallace
James Harrison - Elvis Dumervil
There's enough contract savings to have been able to do this and outbid the Baltimore Ravens for Dumervil. Dumervil took less to be in Baltimore than what Denver paid him but supposedly too more guaranteed money. Elvis Dumervil is only going to cost the Ravens $2.5 million against the salary cap this year. It was a great deal for Baltimore, one that the Steelers could have and should have made since he would be an instant younger upgrade. Beyond that, he's still getting paid less than James Harrison's last contract.
Brett Kiesel -> Cam Heyward
Brett Kiesel didn't have a bad season last year, but he's also goi9ng to be 35 years old a week into the 2013 Season. I love the beard, it's been a great gimmick, but the Steelers need to get better and younger and shed money. Kiesel has had a replacement for a while now in #1 Pick, Cameron Heyward. Rather than than allowing that pick to goto waste forming callouses on his *** from sitting on the bench, let him play and take the savings and apply it elsewhere.
Ike Taylor -> Keenan Lewis
I've talked about Ike Taylor in a separate blog article and the Kevin Colbert Blog Article before. He's a player in his decline years, who lost a step and is coming off an injury that will likely have him lose another half-full step last season. He's making far more money than his production will ever guarantee at this stage of his career. The Steelers had a younger replacement ready to step in. Keenan Lewis was getting ready tot ouch the prime years of his career. He stepped up last year and became that player opposite of Ike Taylor that we had been looking for. Thanks to Cortez Allen's performance last year, we had Wallace's replacement. Lewis make a little less than half of what Ike Taylor makes and will be earning that money through what should be or could be the best production years of his career. Instead we will be stuck with Ike Taylor limping right through his decline years.
Plaxico Burress -> Mike Wallace
...and there was Mike Wallace. This is the one that will probably make most heads scratch. With some crafty number crunching and paper work, Mike Wallace could've been a limited Salary Cap hit this season even with a contract as massive as his overall. in 2009, James Harrison received a contract extension at the age of 31 that paid him nearly $9 million per season in 2009. Mike Wallace getting around $12 million per season 4 years later and at a far younger age is both the equivalent or close to it in terms of dollars but a far better value since Wallace is going to play out that contract through his prime years and Harrison's contract was for his decline years.
I know that a lot of people are on the negative side of Mike Wallace after the way he dealt with his contract dispute last season and the way he dropped balls, but despite it all, he still lead the Steelers in TD receptions and Yards. The Steelers are likely to not have Heath Miller to start the season, and could lose Emanuel Sanders, where is that production going to come from? Even if the Steelers don't lose Sanders, where are the Steelers going to make up all of Mike Wallace's lost production? It isn't as if the Steelers allowed one guy to walk because there was a more than capable replacement on the roster. The Steelers have nobody. They could draft a WR, but that guy isn't going to replace Wallace's production for this season at least. The Steelers would've been better off finding a way to retain Wallace. It wasn't about money. The Steelers have given a buttload of money to players (like James Harrison). It was about coming to terms with the fact that they needed to cut veterans from the team to clear up Cap space to spend the money and they refuse to do so.
I don't like the Steelers situation at Running Back, but I also haven't seen anything in Free Agency that floor's me either. The Steelers are in an Offense where the RB's role is different than what we are accustomed to. Last year, we had Jonathan Dwyer run for 122 yards in a game and Isaac Redman run for 147 yards in a game. This occurred at a point in the season where the Offensive Line had played a bunch of games together, were gelling and forming consistency. When you can avoid the massive amount of injuries like the O-Line was hit with last year, it can produce some outstanding results. We saw it. When you make Redman and Dwyer 100 yard rushers, that's pretty good. Adding Ahmad Bradshaw would help out especially as a pass catching RB with some outside speed, but the solutions for really upgrading the Running game were far and few.
So, here's how many team looks :
Offense :
Gilbert - Foster - Pouncey - DeCastro - Adams
Roethlisberger
Brown - Sanders - Cotchery - Wallace (Miller at TE)
Dwyer- Redman
Defense :
Hood - McLendon - Heyward
Woodley - Foote - Timmons - Dumervil
Lewis - Clark - Polamalu - Allen
It's a younger roster. You have 6 players over the age of 30 (Roethlisberger, Polamalu, Clark, Cotchery, Miller, Foote). You have just 2 players tha are into their decline years of around 32 and beyond (Foote and Clark).
That to me is better than having a roster with 10 players over the age of 30 (Roethlisberger, Polamalu, Clark, Cotchery, Miller, Foote, Kiesel, Taylor, Harrison, Burress). You then go from having just 2 players 32 years old and beyond and now have 6 (Foote, Clark, Harrison, Burress, Taylor, Kiesel).
The importance of this is that it makes it easier for the Steelers to draft and replace. With their current draft record you don't want to leave too many holes because their drafts aren't churning out enough viable replacements as it needs to. Having a smaller number of veteran players makes the job of replacing them easier with drafted players. You can now draft another Inside Linebacker and replace Larry Foote. you can draft a safety and prime him to replace Ryan Clark and/or Troy Polamalu. As it stands now, the Steelers through the draft have to find replacements for a ton of positions. (OLB, ILB, SS, FS, CB, WR) when all they needed to do was make better offseaosn decisions to construct this team and only had to replace (ILB, FS, SS). Anyone else is icing on the cake. Now the Steelers put themselves into a mode of desperation needing to replace so many positions with high quality replacements in the next couple of drafts because they simply refused to let go of Veteran players