Player: OL Max Scharping
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: After rather a long delay, the Steelers have re-signed Max Scharping. He was technically still a compensatory free agent, but had no takers. Reportedly, he returns on a Veteran Salary Benefit deal. While having no assurances of making the roster, the team is currently thin along the offensive interior.
This offseason, the Steelers lost two interior offensive linemen in free agency. One of them, Nate Herbig, didn’t sign for much, so one wonders if that was a player decision. After all, his brother plays here. Either way, the end result seems to be a new contract for Max Scharping.
A former second-round pick, Max Scharping has six years and 2,000-plus snaps under his belt. But it’s hard to ignore that under 100 of those snaps have come over the past three seasons. Granted, backup offensive linemen tend not to play unless there are injuries, so that’s not necessarily some massive red flag.
But there is a reason Scharping, as a former top-60 draft pick, is signing Veteran Salary Benefit deals. There’s a reason he was on the Commanders’ practice squad when the Steelers signed him in October. And there’s a reason that they signed him in October, and not September.
The Steelers signed Max Scharping after dealing with injuries along the offensive line. They brought him in to insulate what they had hoped would be a well-fortified offensive line group. Injuries changed the landscape, though, and that’s why they brought him and Calvin Anderson in.
The Steelers do have Ryan McCollum and Spencer Anderson as potential interior backups. With a full offseason, perhaps Max Scharping can compete for the top backup guard role. Last season, he actually played a couple of snaps at tackle, but that is not his forte.
Either way, this is a low-risk, low-reward move. It cost the Steelers practically nothing to bring Scharping back. And if he makes the team, he likely won’t affect much of anything. He may not even dress, acting as the inactive ninth lineman.
With the new league year underway and the Steelers turning their roster over, it’s once again time to “take stock”. It took a while, but we finally saw some of that change the team talked about after the season ended. Certainly, the move to trade for WR DK Metcalf qualifies as a change, not to mention the accompanying contract.
There is still a long way to go before we know what this Steelers team is going to look like. Once the dust settles on free agency, we turn our attention to the draft, and so on. What other moves might the team make, perhaps unexpected acquisitions or departures? If they traded for one player, they could certainly trade for another, or trade one away. This is a Steelers team starving for postseason success, but how desperate are they for a playoff win in 2025?
