PALM BEACH, Fla. -- An angry sea swelled nearby and early sunshine smacked Bill Cowher in the face as he dug into a breakfast of eggs, potatoes and some meaty topics about his football team yesterday.

His plate was full:

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There's room for more competition in the Steelers' backfield despite the presence of Jerome Bettis and Duce Staley.

"I wouldn't mind bringing another guy in, draft a guy," he said.

There's no room for former Pro Bowl linebacker Jason Gildon, a starter since 1996 and their all-time sack leader. He will be traded or released.

"We're still in the process of trying to trade him," Cowher said. "Sometimes, it can go up to the draft."

Their season of 6-10 prompted the Steelers to release a gaggle of veterans, including Dewayne Washington, Amos Zereoue, Brent Alexander, Mark Bruener and, soon, Gildon.

"We probably had more questions answered last year than were raised based on our record," Cowher said. "We made some decisions, on Jason ... Dewayne. We sat down and looked at our running back position. That became more clear where we wanted to go with that."

Linebacker Alonzo Jackson, a second-round pick who played only two games, is not a flop.

"He wasn't a disappointment. ... People say, why didn't you use him as a rusher? I would have if I had the luxury of a roster spot just to have him play on third down."

The offseason has been a success.

"I think it turned out to be a little better than we had thought going in, and we were fortunate to have tied up most of our starting positions."

But Cowher said there's still work to do, starting with the offensive line. He hopes things will settle down because many of the problems were caused by the ill health or injuries to tackle Marvel Smith and guard Kendall Simmons. Cowher wants more depth in the line, perhaps add a tackle, but is preparing to go with Oliver Ross as his starting right tackle.

"You can talk about running, you can talk about throwing, you can talk about whatever you want, but if you don't have an offensive line you're not going to do anything consistently," he said. "And you better have a little bit of depth there. Sometimes, you lose a guy for one or two games and you better have some people with experience to step in, particularly if you have a quarterback having a little bit of tough times and that position starts to get scrutinized and that becomes fragile on their psyche. There's nothing like a quarterback knowing that he can step up into the pocket or [being able to] run the football on third-and-1.

"A lot of what we did a year ago going [back] to Jerome, we couldn't create any kind of openings in the offensive line. We were just going in there banging your head, falling forward and getting 3 yards. Jerome was going to bang his head a lot harder than Amos."

That's why Bettis, and not Zereoue, is back to compete with Staley, Verron Haynes and perhaps a rookie for the starting job.

"I'm going in open-minded. I'm going to let them compete," Cowher said. "I like Verron Haynes. He's a guy no one's talked about. Verron, I think, is a pretty good running back. Jerome, I know he's anxious to compete. I know what Duce Staley can do. He's a three-down back, great hands, a player that Philadelphia's always kind of turned to in the playoffs. He's unselfish, a great blocker.

"There's going to be a different mood, a different feel. We went through a thing with Jerome and Amos and they complemented one another. I think to a degree a little bit of complacency set in there. They kind of knew where they were. I like right now that nobody knows where they are. That's how it should be."

Cowher gave quarterback Tommy Maddox a vote of confidence, explaining that his statistics suffered because of the problems with the offensive line and the running game, which Cowher promised would be much improved from its No. 31 ranking last season.

"I think there were a lot of factors that led into some of the inconsistencies we had last year, not just Tommy, but our offensive line. There's no question if you surround him with the right people, he's a very, very efficient quarterback. Yeah, Tommy's 32, but he's a young 32, obviously, because he hasn't played a lot of football."

Cornerback Chad Scott has, and Cowher is crossing his fingers that Scott can return to the form that prompted the Steelers to sign him to a six-year, $30 million contract in the summer of 2001. Scott's season ended in December when he had hand surgery.

"Hopefully he'll be able to get back to where he was," said Cowher, who expressed delight with the play last year of two other cornerbacks -- Deshea Townsend, who replaced Washington, and rookie Ike Taylor.