Here is my conspiracy theory on Steele. He and Ross don’t hit it off. Don’t know why. Last year things were very up and down for Steele and I thought it started pre season. During the year he had a few niggles but Lyon emphatically said in June they were not the issue. With Steele struggling mid season Lyon takes Sinclair from defence to fix some midfield issues much to the despair of Def coach Corey Enright. Pre Lyon days he argued hard to get him in defence because he knew defence would suit him perfectly (on queue a 113 ave season 2022 proving Enright correct).
Lyon loves Sinclair. He is a Mr Fixit guy. Lyon asks him to do a job and he just does it. No fuss. Enright sees Lyon taking Sinclair away from defence in the future to solve a greater problem and knows he cannot argue with that. So he is happy that he has NWM (who he also asked to be part of the defence team I believe) to take over from Sinclair since his days may be numbered in that position. Hence the solid numbers NWM produced at the end of 2023 as he worked into the role and Sinclair spent time in various games elsewhere.
Meanwhile for mine the future of Steele is somewhat unknown. IMO once you are on the wrong side of Ross Lyon (if that is the case) it can be a hard road to come back. Is he heading towards becoming the next 100 ave middle of the road mid? Don’t know. Can he go back to 126 ave like 2021. I think that is unlikely.
So the plan would be I would take a Sinclair or NWM before I would consider Steele. However as Mike Tyson said “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face.” So it is quite possible that mid year after Steele has punched out five 130 plus scores in a row I am scrambling to get him into my mids as an upgrade

!!