Who Will Replace Ward, Farrior And Smith as Team Leaders?

As we move into the month of July the Steelers near the beginning of the 2012 training camp and beyond.  There will be many new faces wearing the black and gold this year, all young and fresh to the NFL.  There will also be a good bunch of Steeler stalwarts conspicuously missing in the locker room and on the field.

Among those no longer with the team are some of their leaders; the guys in the locker room and on the field who led the way through not only their play, but via their speeches, their mannerisms and their professionalism.  Hines Ward, James Farrior and Aaron Smith are all gone.  These three were key components to the Steelers success over the last decade and there will need to be three or four new guys who will have to step up and assume that leadership role. 

Leader is defined as ‘a person who has commanding authority or influence’.  As I scroll the roster I ponder who might fit that definition and why?  My first thought is an easy one, it’s Ben Roethlisberger.  First and foremost the quarterback is the most visible, influential and most important position on any football team. The Quarterback is often looked at as not only the leader of the offense, but of the team.  Roethlisberger has started to develop his leadership skills over the past couple years and will really be looked to by the coaching staff to step up and lead this team into battle.  He’s a true veteran, having 9 years under his belt, he’s tough, he’s a winner, he’s seen it all and he’s done it all.  He has a lot of young guys surrounding him on the offensive side of the ball and given that he plays quarterback, at a high level, what he says goes.  Ben is a guy this team can follow. They will win if he steps up and proves to his guys that he expects quality football out of each and every one of them. As a leader he can’t be afraid to hold guys accountable for mistakes while teaching the young guys at the same time and not hurting their confidence. If he plays that way and speaks that way, which there is no doubt in my mind he will, he’ll be the best leader this team can find.

Since I picked the best offensive player on the team, I then looked next at the best defensive player on the team, Troy Polamalu. But I don’t think he fits the bill. He’s an incredible player on the field and can be an example of how to play the game, and surely is an example off the field, more so than anyone else on this roster, but he’s not a leader in the true sense of the word. Troy is very soft spoken and appears to be more introverted than what a true leader needs to be.  I wouldn’t change a thing about him; he’s just not the next guy up in this category. The next guy up plays next to Troy though, it’s Ryan Clark. He’s a guy who’s a good player, he’s been on this team for a while, he’s vocal, he’s a coach on the field and he can fill the void missing by some of the departed guys. Ryan possesses all the qualities a coach would want in a leader and it’s my suspicion that he’ll be another one.

To me the third guy needs to come from one of the lines. These are the guys in the ‘trenches’; the ones that block, hit and get hit. These guys are the guts of the team and it’s important to have a leader come out of these groups. I looked at the O-line first and I believe that everyone on that team is just too young to truly step up or has some fundamental issue in which they can’t or won’t become a leader. Willie Colon has been around a long time but he’s missed basically all of the last two years with injuries. I don’t think having missed that amount of time that he can be looked at as a leader by the other guys. That took me to the defensive line, Casey Hampton isn’t that guy, Ziggy Hood isn’t that guy but  there’s a natural leader sitting there, Brett Keisel.  He’s a tough guy and doesn’t take any gruff from anyone. He’s a heck of a ball player, he too can give a speech when needed and he plays on a unit that’s important.  Keisel will hold guys accountable on and off the field as he plays hard on it and he really does a lot of good off of it.  He seems like the natural leader in the trenches.

If Roethlisberger, Clark and Keisel can step into these roles and replace the likes of Ward, Farrior and Smith, the Steelers won’t miss a beat.  The leaders of a football team can really make or break an entire season. You don’t have to look any further than the New York Giants and the New York Jets of last season. The Giants had Eli Manning as a leader last year and they went on to win the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the Jets had Santonio Holmes in the same role and the team failed to make the playoffs as Holmes complained and moaned about playing time and catches. 

A leader is not hand selected, a leader steps up, he takes charge and he finds a way to push his teammates to their pinnacle. The guys I talk about in this article are guys that stand out to me as the types of players that will do just that. If they don’t, someone else may, but a team without a leader is a team without direction and that’s not what the Steelers of any year, era or generation have ever been about.