The chain of decisions that led the Steelers to shape and re-shape their future at the cornerback position from 2010-today will continue to be one of the more hotly discussed issues in Steeler Nation.

The team hasn’t invested a first round pick in the position in decades, and, considering the success of their defense overall in that timeframe, along with the general availability of high-level pro cornerbacks taken in the middle rounds of drafts in the last 20 years, suggests they might not have to.

At one point, the future intersected with the present. Financial concerns led the Steelers to make a decision on the present value of Keenan Lewis vs. the future value of Cortez Allen. And the aftershock of that decision seems to be felt with each passing week.

Where it Began

The Steelers have what appears to be an agenda in place with the cornerback position. Over the last 10 years, they’ve had one cornerback playing on a fairly normal sized contract for a veteran on an extension, and they fill in the remaining position with a combination of veterans on cheap, short deals and guys on rookie contracts.

In the past, the big contract has been held by Ike Taylor, and veterans such as Bryant McFadden, William Gay, Anthony Madison, Fernando Bryant and Deshea Townsend filled in while guys on rookie deals like like Allen, Lewis and Ricardo Colclough moved up the depth chart and, in some cases, off the team.

McFadden left the Steelers via free agency in 2009, signing a two-year, $10 million deal with the Cardinals that offseason. After a rough year in the secondary, the Steelers traded the Cardinals for Bryant (netting the sixth-round pick that the Steelers used to select Antonio Brown in the process), giving them a starting battery of McFadden and Taylor for the 2010 season. After having selected Lewis in the third round of the 2009 NFL Draft, they took Texas’s Curtis Brown in the third round in 2011, then Allen in the fourth round.

Having selected three cornerbacks in two years between 2010-11, it was clear the Steelers were looking to find their next Ike Taylor and Bryant McFadden; some pairing of cornerbacks who could be worked through their system and built into the kinds of players they wanted.

The Building Process

Next to quarterback, the cornerback position is one of the most difficult to evaluate and render an accurate decision on the player’s future ability. Schematic differences from the college level to the pros affects this — Alabama cornerbacks, for example, are not taught to back-pedal due to the positioning of the team’s linebackers and safeties. When those players (i.e. Darqueze Dennard or Dre Kirkpatrick of the Bengals, for example) get to the pros, they have to re-learn much of the technique of the position. That, in turn, keeps them off the field for a while, which gives other players the opportunity to win and hold down those positions.

What the Steelers saw of Lewis his first three seasons was a work-in-progress. He played in 13 games his first two seasons, finishing his rookie year on injured reserve. Lewis got his first — and only — interception with the Steelers in 2012, but only after finding himself in a battle for the team’s starting position opposite Ike Taylor. Brown fizzled out, and the future possibility of becoming the team’s next Big Money cornerback was between Allen and Lewis.

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The Steelers had a unique situation on their hands in 2013. Past contract restructurings for Taylor, along with his 2011 post-lockout contract, created a sizable salary cap number, around $7 million, in which Taylor was struggling to justify. The Steelers were pressed to the top of the cap as it was, and after seeing Lewis finally break out and become an effective player was masked by Allen’s play.

Despite revisionist history on the matter, the argument can easily be made Allen, the team’s nickel back in 2012, out-played Lewis that season. Pro Football Focus gave Allen a 12.3 grade while Lewis logged a 6.5.

That isn’t to say Lewis wasn’t worth keeping, but the issue rested more with the team’s cap position and the free agency market than it did with a desire to keep or lose Lewis.

William Gay, who, like McFadden did previously, left for Steelers West in Arizona. It didn’t work out well for him there, and the Cardinals released him after just one season. Since he was released before the start of free agency in 2013, he could be both signed immediately and he wouldn’t count against the complex compensatory picks formula for whichever team signed him.

In other words, a veteran cornerback who knew the Steelers’ system became available before free agency began. He could potentially play 650-1000 snaps and he could cost them $1.5 million or less a year on a three-year deal.

Lewis, at age 26, had 26 pass breakups in 2012 and could parlay that, along with his 6-foot-0 frame, into a nice free agent deal. The Steelers also had Allen (2 INTs 3 forced fumbles), who out-performed Lewis in terms of playmaking the previous year (0 INTs, 1 forced fumble), on a cheap contract for another two years.

The Steelers signed Gay to a three-year, $4.5 million contract in 2013. Lewis signed a five-year, $25.5 million contract with the New Orleans Saints. Lewis would cost the Saints the same amount as Gay and Allen cost the Steelers combined in 2013, and Lewis’s passes defensed dropped in half that first year. PFF gave Lewis an 8.8 grad that year.

Gay registered a 13.9 grade, according to PFF. And he cost the Steelers a third as much as Lewis cost the Saints.

Adding it All Up

Lewis was a decent player for the Steelers in 2012 after looking largely like a fairly neutral player his first three years with the team. He finally began making plays on the ball that season, but logged one interception in his first four years in the league. He got a market value contract for players who had accomplished more than he had to that point in their careers.

The Steelers, in a bit of cap trouble, had the opportunity to sign a comparable player for 20 percent of the price over the next three years, and could move Allen, the vastly superior playmaker, into a starting role opposite Taylor, and groom him to be their next big money cornerback.

Two game-ready cornerbacks for less than half the price of one. Why is that a bad move?

Lewis has become something of a legend without any sort of statistical evidence to support such claims. It took him two seasons in New Orleans (playing in an aggressive man coverage defense) to match the pass break-up total he had in 2012 with the Steelers. He hasn’t sniffed a Pro Bowl. The Saints’ defense has been mediocre-at-best.

None of this excuses Allen’s shocking decline over what’s likely his last 10 games in a Steelers uniform. But if we’re evaluating this decision solely from the team’s perspective back in 2013 — when Lewis left and Gay was signed — it was a sound move for the future security of the position and cap health of the team.

Critics will judge the Steelers for three moves:

Signing Ike Taylor to a four-year, $28 million deal in 2011, then restructuring his contract twice in the next two years, setting up a bloated cap number that forced the team to basically tell him to take a massive paycut in 2014. Letting Lewis leave to sign a contract commensurate with the level of a fifth-year player with some positive accomplishment in his career. Signing Allen to what turned out to be almost the identical contract, just with less guaranteed money, a year later.

The Steelers will get no credit for signing Gay to an incredibly team-friendly three-year deal, over the span of which he’s arguably outplayed Allen, Lewis and Taylor and made substantially less money than any of the three of them.

Through two years in the league, Allen showed great potential. He found himself around the ball often — he forced five takeaways in the final five quarters of the 2012 season — and was growing into the position. Considering the team’s cap position in 2013, and Gay’s availability, the smart move was to sign Gay on the cheap, continue developing Allen and get a compensatory pick back for Lewis in 2014.

There are those who will hold Lewis over the Steelers’ heads like Rod Woodson was allowed to leave the franchise again. The reality is Lewis is paid like a mid-level cornerback and he produces like a mid-level cornerback. No one in their right mind could have said, in 2013, Allen was not capable of accomplishing at least what Lewis had in his four years in the NFL. It was the sound financial decision, and a defensible argument from a personnel perspective.

The Aftermath

Whatever is happening with Allen now couldn’t have been anticipated. Nine rough games in 2014 coupled with just one game in 2015 before being placed on the shelf for the second year in a row.

Allen’s release in 2016 would carry with it approximately $4 million in dead money immediately accelerated to the salary cap. The fact he had a $3 million roster bonus paid to him in March is counting on this year’s cap. He has the prorated portion of his signing bonus — $4.05 million — still to account for. Making Allen a post-June 1 release would split that bonus over the 2016 and 2017 caps. That would save the Steelers approximately $2 million next season, and put $2.05 million in dead money on the cap in each of the next two years.

It would seem the Steelers are heading in that direction. Incidentally, the $2 million is roughly what it would cost to sign Gay to a one-year deal after the season and retain Ross Cockrell, the free agent they picked up after Buffalo released him from his rookie deal in September (Cockrell is an exclusive rights free agent after this season, meaning he can’t sign anywhere else unless the Steelers release him).

Allen is the only Steelers cornerback outside Senquez Golson (the highest drafted Steelers cornerback since McFadden in 2005) with a contract next season. That’s a stark contrast to the days in which they had Taylor locked up to a long-term deal, McFadden on a short one and several rookies vying for the future starting spots that would, theoretically, open up.

There was a time when it seemed Lewis and Allen were the future duo; a group that would have helped usher in a stronger era of cornerback play in Pittsburgh. Lewis’s career will continue in New Orleans, as the Saints have restructured his deal to the point they basically can’t get rid of him (not that they’d want to) without a massive cap hit.

The Steelers’ decision path was valid. It just didn’t work out.

It could be worse. LaMarr Woodley is counting for $8.5 million of Steelers’ cap space this season, and he notched his first post-Steelers sack for the Cardinals in Week 4.