Cincinnati Bengals Playoff Team Free Agency Targets: Pittsburgh Steelers

As we continue to look at Cincinnati Bengals free agency targets from 2017 playoff teams, a look at who could be worth targeting from the Pittsburgh Steelers.

With 2018 free agency approaching in roughly a month-and-a-half, the Cincinnati Bengals have decisions to ponder to find the best course of action. However, that makes right now the perfect time for evaluation of players that could be of value.

The players on this year’s playoff teams have added more film that can be used for (or against) their cases for a quality contract with teams around the league; franchises everywhere were surely watching intently. This series is an exercise to determine a few of them who may be worth consideration by Cincinnati once free agency officially opens this spring.

We’ve already covered a player on each of the following teams: the Buffalo Bills, Kansas City Chiefs, Carolina Panthers, Los Angeles Rams, Atlanta Falcons, Tennessee Titans, and New Orleans Saints. Now, we look at one from the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Chris Hubbard, OL

Pittsburgh’s success on offense this season would seem to mainly stem from their excellent stable of skill position players. There’s a great argument for that point; Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell are each the best in the league at their positions, rookie JuJu Smith-Schuster exploded onto the scene as a high-level contributor, and despite some rough patches Martavis Bryant returned from a year-long suspension to be the most explosive element of the team.

Do not overlook the talents of that offensive line when doling out kudos, however. Per Football Outsiders, the unit ranked within the top ten for numerous aspects of the pass and run games — including the best adjusted sack rate of any offensive line in the entire league. Without a quality performance from that unit, those skill players could often have been rendered much less effective than we eventually saw in 2017.

Cincinnati knows that reality all too well. Entering 2017, there was some dark-horse playoff berth buzz for the Bengals, in major part due to their accumulation of what seemed to be a deep and talented cadre of skill players. They went three deep with starter-quality runners, at least seven receivers worth strong consideration for a roster spot, and 4-5 tight ends that the team had a vested interest in keeping around led by the talents of Tyler Eifert.

What they didn’t have was an offensive line, and it undermined everything. The group ended 2016 as a bad unit but used the 2017 offseason to just get progressively worse while adding nothing of value in free agency or the draft beyond retread former Bengal Andre Smith. The line was not only proven to be low in top-end talent, but it had zero depth as well. Behind constant pathetic blocking efforts, Cincinnati was a below average offense (No. 20 or worse in Football Outsiders’ Offensive DVOA, Pass Offense DVOA, and Run Offense DVOA) which was the least consistent unit in the entire league.

This line needs a handful of new bodies added to the mix to allow them any reasonable chance to return to respectability in their blocking efforts; just one will not do. What will also help is getting players with the ability to step up at multiple positions as well (as the end of 2017 showed, even their best remaining guy — left guard Clint Boling — proved woefully out of his depths when forced to play elsewhere).

One possibility to pursue is Hubbard. He was pushed into a much bigger role than anyone probably expected of him this year, picking up more than double his previous career snap total (365) all in a single season (780). Even though his own performance wasn’t spectacular (69.7 Pro Football Focus Edge grade), he was a part of what was one of the NFL’s better overall offensive lines.

Even if they don’t view him as a starter going forward, the Steelers probably don’t want to let him leave. Experienced linemen are hard to come by, and teams trying to be consistent on offense are playing with fate if they skimp on their blockers. Still, the Steelers are one of three teams already over the salary cap even before a deal for any of their free agents. It’ll be difficult to allocate any sort of decent resources to a possible backup. Plus, they have another more successful (albeit in less snaps) to choose to retain in B.J. Finney, who due to being an exclusive-rights free agent (rather than an unrestricted free agent like Hubbard) is much easier to retain for a more affordable price.

Next: 2018 NFL Mock Draft: Post-Super Bowl edition

That helps the Bengals chances of getting Hubbard immensely, and they shouldn’t waste the opportunity. Even if all he turns out to be is a low-end starter (his PFF grades would point to that as a decent possibility), that would be a massive upgrade on its own. Boling was the only positively-graded offensive lineman on the entire Cincinnati roster in 2017. The rest were deep in the “poor” territory of grading. The right side of the line needs massive help at both tackle and guard; Hubbard has extensive experience at each spot. He spent the majority of his career at guard, then spent this season getting more official snaps at tackle than he ever got previously.

The blocking puzzle won’t be solved entirely by adding Hubbard, but he can be a piece of an effective solution.