Good morning.
We’ve made it through two practices, one reported injury (Ross Ventrone) and one reported issue with the heat (Cam Clear). No one among the media has suffered any injuries, but I believe I’m down about six pounds in water weight.
Anyway … let’s get started.
Rizzenman55: If teams are unhappy that one player (the QB) eats up so much cap space, why don’t the owners agree to a rule that each team can exempt one salary from counting against the cap?
Neal: I wouldn’t say teams are unhappy, but you’re right, we’re seeing a stark increase in cap space being used on the quarterback position. From that perspective, the CBA signed in 2011 was meant to help increase the midline of veterans in the league by slashing the amount of money being spent on the top draft picks. This theoretically would increase cap space each year for veteran players to get extensions or be able to strike it big in free agency .
That was the players’ perspective, and it hasn’t really played out that way so far (it’s an issue ex-Pitt defensive lineman Sean Gilbert spoke out about in his unsuccessful bid to become the president of the NFLPA). There’s no reason to think it’s going to change. I was on WBAL News Radio in Baltimore last night with guest host Jamison Hensley of ESPN, he and I have argued back-and-forth in the past about the contract given to Joe Flacco. His contention is he’s among the best in the game, therefore, he deserves the contract he was given. My stance is Flacco was paid what’s essentially market value for a starting quarterback.
He also had them over the barrel, considering his playoff success that led them to a Super Bowl championship, but it goes deeper than that. Which teams have really just not been successful in recent years? The Browns, Titans, Jets, Vikings and Buccaneers, just to name a few. The one thing they all have in common is the lack of a quality quarterback. Veteran quarterbacks around the league like Matt Cassell, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Michael Vick, Josh McCown and on and on have been able to secure paychecks because these teams have been unable to secure that position for the long term. Not sure off the top of my head what the playoff records of those quarterbacks are since 2010 or so, but it’ll start with an “0-for-“.
Those teams have suffered because of it, although Teddy Bridgewater looks to be legit now. So when his rookie contract is up, he’s either going to get a Flacco-like deal, similar to the one Cam Newton got in Carolina, or he’s going to get something incentive-laden with the team’s ability to escape it after three years, like the Bengals gave Andy Dalton and the 49ers gave Colin Kaepernick.
Point being, Bridgewater won’t need to put up Aaron Rodgers-like numbers to get a $100 million contract. It’s not a figure that represents elite production, it represents the fact teams cannot win in the NFL without a solid quarterback. The player has all the leverage, so Bridgewater can put together a career rating of 85 and get $60 million guaranteed, simply because the Vikings won’t want to start over (again) at the position.
For the record, Ben Roethlisberger’s cap hit is over $23 million next year, or, roughly 15 percent of a $148 million cap in 2016.
____________________
Pittsblitz56: With Bruce Gradkowski out of action for a while and the inability of Landry Jones to impress. Is there a possibility that the Steelers will look to add a veteran QB before preseason games begin.
Neal: They won’t do it now, I don’t think, but what they’re going to do is give Tajh Boyd, Tyler Murphy and Devin Gardner as much opportunity as they can. Boyd has probably looked the best so far – big asterisk, they’re not in pads. Boyd doesn’t have a very strong arm, but he throws more accurately than Murphy and Gardner do. Right now, I’d say the battle for the team’s back-up, based on who’s in camp, is between Boyd and Jones.
Gradkowski has been running on the side during drills, perhaps to relieve boredom. He’s on the PUP list, which is standard if he can’t practice, and Mike Tomlin said Monday the four PUP listers who aren’t as of now confirmed to be out for the foreseeable future like Mike Adams — Gradkowski, Maurkice Pouncey, Senquez Golson and Shawn Lemon — will be evaluated after the day off.
They’ll roll in camp with who they have, but I’d be willing to bet, if Gradkowski eventually ends up on injured reserve, they’d kick the tires on a veteran quarterback to compete with Jones for the backup job.
____________________
Lupe Sanchez: How is Le’Veon Bell’s knee not 100 percent? It’s been six months of recuperation. Do you detect any level of concern among anyone at camp about that?
Neal: None at all. One interesting characteristic of Bell is he’s very deliberate in his answers, and he’s a talker. He was sort of in auto-response mode when he was asked multiple times about the status of his suspension, but when the subject of his knee came up, he got very specific and thoughtful. His response was essentially that his right knee didn’t feel quite as good as his left knee did, and he said it’s about 95 percent healthy.
I’m not one to judge the depths one person measures his body, but Bell seems in-tune enough with his he really could feel a five percent difference — whatever that is — from one knee to the other. What I know is he has been running well, there’s no limp, I’m not even sure he was wearing a brace during practices. He’s running routes, cutting sharply and getting up field, every time about 20 yards beyond the whistle blowing. It looks to me he’s in phenomenal shape, and perhaps that five percent is the difference between 90 catches and 40, but I doubt it.
____________________
Kilo Echo: What have you observed from coaching intern Dexter Jackson thus far — any Tampa 2 influence?
Neal: One play I noticed was a deep throw from Jones, I believe, to Darrius Heyward-Bey (two good practices from DHB, by the way). Shamarko Thomas was down the seam, and broke deep to his left, tracking the ball. Great effort for a non-contact drill, and incidentally bumped into DHB, who still made the catch. Thomas’s helmet flew off, and he got up, yelling in frustration. Tomlin was out there right away praising Thomas, picking up his helmet and shouting encouragement at him.
Schematically, that’s where the strong safety should be in a Tampa 2. The fact Tomlin was all over the defensive player who couldn’t make the play but was where he should be speaks volumes about the current direction of the defense, especially considering the receiver made a great play.
What’s getting lost in the recent talk about where the cornerbacks are playing or even where the safeties are is the key component of the Tampa 2 defense. Ryan Shazier has been dropping into deep coverage often, and the outside linebackers have been trailing receivers underneath. To me, that’s more what defines a Tampa 2 defense, and to whatever degree they’re practicing that (don’t think variations of subpackages define the base defense) doesn’t mean much.
I don’t expect a wholesale change to a Tampa 2 defense. They’ve run remnants of it previously, so a few plays over two days of padless practices should be taken for what it is. I’ll say this, though. We’ll revisit the topic again, but watch what Shazier does on the first snap of the season. That’ll tell us more than training camp will.
____________________
Biz: Welcome Neal. So how do you think this NFL/Tom Brady mess will work out?
Neal: Very happy to be here, thank you!
Simply put, expect Brady to be on the field in Week 1. The NFL doesn’t have any more evidence of wrongdoing than it had against the Saints in the Bountygate affair. Less, even. They had emails of the coach directly speaking of the cash pool doled out to players for hits in games. All they have is circumstantial evidence from a few low-level equipment guys, who may or may not talk.
Roger Goodell and the NFL have a record in court similar to Lionel Hutz, and the continued belief that the CBA somehow trumps labor law shows hubris to the level previously unknown in major professional sports. Their mistake in all of the player conduct control they wished to take on was assuming the players would accept Goodell’s ruling willy nilly.
The Steelers were the only team to not approve the CBA, and their reason for rejecting it was the massive amount of power being given to the commissioner in regards to player conduct matters. Suspending a player for four games based on a report that it’s more likely than not he helped, to some degree, deflate footballs, is attacking a fly with a rocket launcher. They may have something of a case in regards to Brady not being fully cooperative in the investigation, but even that doesn’t seem particularly strong, considering they were asking him to turn over his personal cell phone, or at least allow the league to strip it down and see all his personal information.
A fine seemed more in line with reasonability. Because they went for four games, this will end up in court, Brady’s army of lawyers will get an injunction to stay his suspension until the results of the hearing, and we’ll see him trot out on the field at Gillette Stadium Sept. 10.
____________________
briangahagen:Why isn’t the NFL conducting the appeal for Bell at a quicker pace? It’s dragging with no resolution in sight. Is it posturing or is it a matter of availability between the NFL AND Bell’s camp?
Neal: (Update: Bell and the NFL are reportedly in discussions about possibly reducing his suspension) First off, we don’t know whether it’s dragging out. We just know no ruling has been made public. The league provides no timetable on appeals. The Brady issue is a different situation, considering the depth of the suspension, the reasons for that suspension and the pending legal action that’s almost certainly going to come from it.
Second, the NFL has firmly established punishments for just two areas: DUI and drug possession. Bell got two games for the DUI and one game for possession (LeGarrette Blount also got a one-game suspension for possession). I really don’t know what he’ll be able to argue, outside his quick completion of all court-required actions.
Considering Goodell has his suspensions challenged in court on what seems like a monthly basis, he’s going to need one of them to stick here and there, and I’d say the one in which he has firmly stated punishments will be the one that sticks.
Bell will miss three games this year, I’m 95 percent certain of that. I’ve also learned predicting the decisions made by the NFL is about as reliable as betting on the weather.
____________________
TheGreatOne21: I never understood why there is so much emphasis (rightly so) on rookies 4 4 time, but when it comes to the speed of a current team (especially skill positions) of each player there is no 40 yard timing to see if a player has lost a step or 2 or even three.
Neal: I cut down some of your question, and I apologize for that, but this is the meat of it.
Fans emphasize 40-times among prospects more than the team is actually discussing it. However, a player needs to be fast to play this game. Conversely, fans associate draft position and athletic attributes as being worth a bit more overall as their careers progress more than they probably should.
It’s clear when a player has diminishing athletic skill, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t play the game anymore. Experience can make a player faster on the field. Because of that, I don’t think measuring their 40-time after they’ve been drafted really provides any kind of insight. The draft is simply about potential. Take a lump of clay, you’re trusting yourself as a sculptor or artist to make it into what you want it to be, but you can only pick one kind of clay. You’d analyze the attributes of that clay, and ultimately decide on the one you feel you could mold into whatever object you wanted it to be.
The 40-time is only one part of a highly detailed evaluation that factors in things we can’t fully understand. It just happens to be the easiest to understand, and the most popular.
Drill that down even further, does he have at least acceptable speed? Does his 40-time translate to what the scouts thought of him speed-wise on film? That’s what the Combine is about.
____________________
iisbaer89: It is a tough road towards another Super Bowl for the Steelers. How will it affect them, eyeing the post-season, that they are going to play the arguably toughest regular season schedule of the entire NFL?
Neal: Two schools of thought: One, it’s tough enough of a schedule to cost them two or even three games from the previous season, and they’ll fall back into that .500 range, probably not qualifying for the playoffs. Two, iron sharpens iron, and the Steelers become a stronger team by playing stronger opponents.
Let’s keep in mind, in regards to the defense (lots of questions about that here), they’re playing against one of the best offenses in the NFL every day in practice. That’s a point defensive players have mentioned frequently at camp so far. The Browns play against a terrible passing offense every day in practice, for example. By that line of thinking, the Steelers’ defense will have prepared itself to take on at least the offense-heavy teams littered all over their schedule.
Fans look at the schedule strictly from the Steelers’ perspective, and rightly so, but what are the Ravens saying about traveling to Pittsburgh on a short week to take on the Steelers with Bell in the game? A fully stocked Steelers team hung 43 points on them last year. Roethlisberger put up what I feel is one of the greatest offensive performances in the history of the league against the Colts last year (someone else mentioned that), and the Patriots decimated that defense as well. Did the Colts improve much defensively?
Winning in Baltimore and Seattle later in the year won’t be easy, but those teams aren’t geeked up to face a Steelers offense with Le’Veon Bell on the field either.
____________________
bpn8pitt: Are the Steelers in the market for an offensive tackle, considering Mike Adams will miss most of training camp?
Neal: They’re going to see what they have in Alejandro Villanueva, Mitchell Van Dyk and Kevin Whimpey before they look to make a move. Adams will miss camp, that’s true, but he’s not on injured reserve at this time. Should his injury continue to affect him at the point the 53-man roster is being decided, it’s possible they look for a veteran backup, but my feeling is — and this ties in with other questions posted regarding the future of Kelvin Beachum — they’d really like one of their undrafted guys to step up.
Villanueva has looked pretty good so far. He has the length needed for the position. From the Steelers’ perspective, what they would really like is to see him continue to work (much like Beachum did in the early stages of his career) and win a spot. That would give them flexibility, not just with Beachum’s contract situation but with Ramon Foster‘s as well. Both are free agents next year, and the team has already sunk a huge amount of money into Maurkice Pouncey, David DeCastro and Marcus Gilbert.
Kevin Colbert once said something to the effect of not being able to fill an entire offensive line of first round picks. The Steelers haven’t quite done that, but they’re already one of the most expensive lines in the league, and they don’t have a left guard or left tackle clearly identified right now for 2016 and beyond. They can probably get Foster back on an affordable deal, but Beachum’s market value is huge. If, say, Villanueva could earn a backup job this year, and be groomed to start at left tackle, Beachum could be moved inside. That still would require a sizable extension, one he’s certainly earned.
They could let Beachum walk, give the extension to DeCastro (he’s scheduled to earn around $8 million next year on his fifth-year club option) and slide Villanueva into the left tackle position, but again, that’s more cap money spent on the offensive line. The Steelers have over $145 million against the cap for their top 51 players in 2016. The cap itself for 2016 won’t be set until next offseason, but it’s $143 million now, and several of the players in that top 51 now won’t be on the team. So you’re looking at being at the cap, more or less, and that’s without contracts for a left tackle and a left guard, or the draft class being signed. They’ll be able to carry over some space from this year as well (they’re $7 million and change under it now) which will help, but it’s also the reason signing a free agent now becomes more challenging.
Contrary to the opinions of some, the Steelers are not in a great position in terms of the cap next year, and the departures of a few key veterans appears imminent. And those kinds of moves would have to be made before a Beachum extension could be negotiated.
____________________
stein.ryan: How about a random and fun one Neal. Name the 4 Steeers (players or coaches) who would fare best in a Steel Cage match. Then pick your winner!
Neal: We saw William Gay deliver a nasty People’s Elbow to Cam Heyward in warmups Monday. You’d like to think he should at least get a nod for that, but no, not in comparison to a Battle Royale between James Harrison, Jack Lambert, Greg Lloyd and Joe Greene.
Such a battle would seem capable of undoing the laws of physics, tearing the fabric of the universe in such a way the planet would be rendered unlivable.
Lambert would be fighting until the bitter end, an end he simply couldn’t fend off due to the sheer size of his competitors, and his turf toe injury that tragically cut his Hall of Fame career in half. Lloyd couldn’t make up the 50 pounds difference between himself and Harrison, but both would eventually fall to Greene.
Our People’s Champion.
Two hard-working reporters watch closely to make sure Antonio Brown stayed in bounds on this drill. -- DAVE DiCELLO
July 28, 2015
Tuesday 10 Qs: Neal, Steelers take over
by Neal Coolong • Five Qs at 5 • Steelers
Good morning.
We’ve made it through two practices, one reported injury (Ross Ventrone) and one reported issue with the heat (Cam Clear). No one among the media has suffered any injuries, but I believe I’m down about six pounds in water weight.
Anyway … let’s get started.
Rizzenman55: If teams are unhappy that one player (the QB) eats up so much cap space, why don’t the owners agree to a rule that each team can exempt one salary from counting against the cap?
Neal: I wouldn’t say teams are unhappy, but you’re right, we’re seeing a stark increase in cap space being used on the quarterback position. From that perspective, the CBA signed in 2011 was meant to help increase the midline of veterans in the league by slashing the amount of money being spent on the top draft picks. This theoretically would increase cap space each year for veteran players to get extensions or be able to strike it big in free agency .
That was the players’ perspective, and it hasn’t really played out that way so far (it’s an issue ex-Pitt defensive lineman Sean Gilbert spoke out about in his unsuccessful bid to become the president of the NFLPA). There’s no reason to think it’s going to change. I was on WBAL News Radio in Baltimore last night with guest host Jamison Hensley of ESPN, he and I have argued back-and-forth in the past about the contract given to Joe Flacco. His contention is he’s among the best in the game, therefore, he deserves the contract he was given. My stance is Flacco was paid what’s essentially market value for a starting quarterback.
He also had them over the barrel, considering his playoff success that led them to a Super Bowl championship, but it goes deeper than that. Which teams have really just not been successful in recent years? The Browns, Titans, Jets, Vikings and Buccaneers, just to name a few. The one thing they all have in common is the lack of a quality quarterback. Veteran quarterbacks around the league like Matt Cassell, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Michael Vick, Josh McCown and on and on have been able to secure paychecks because these teams have been unable to secure that position for the long term. Not sure off the top of my head what the playoff records of those quarterbacks are since 2010 or so, but it’ll start with an “0-for-“.
Those teams have suffered because of it, although Teddy Bridgewater looks to be legit now. So when his rookie contract is up, he’s either going to get a Flacco-like deal, similar to the one Cam Newton got in Carolina, or he’s going to get something incentive-laden with the team’s ability to escape it after three years, like the Bengals gave Andy Dalton and the 49ers gave Colin Kaepernick.
Point being, Bridgewater won’t need to put up Aaron Rodgers-like numbers to get a $100 million contract. It’s not a figure that represents elite production, it represents the fact teams cannot win in the NFL without a solid quarterback. The player has all the leverage, so Bridgewater can put together a career rating of 85 and get $60 million guaranteed, simply because the Vikings won’t want to start over (again) at the position.
For the record, Ben Roethlisberger’s cap hit is over $23 million next year, or, roughly 15 percent of a $148 million cap in 2016.
____________________
Pittsblitz56: With Bruce Gradkowski out of action for a while and the inability of Landry Jones to impress. Is there a possibility that the Steelers will look to add a veteran QB before preseason games begin.
Neal: They won’t do it now, I don’t think, but what they’re going to do is give Tajh Boyd, Tyler Murphy and Devin Gardner as much opportunity as they can. Boyd has probably looked the best so far – big asterisk, they’re not in pads. Boyd doesn’t have a very strong arm, but he throws more accurately than Murphy and Gardner do. Right now, I’d say the battle for the team’s back-up, based on who’s in camp, is between Boyd and Jones.
Gradkowski has been running on the side during drills, perhaps to relieve boredom. He’s on the PUP list, which is standard if he can’t practice, and Mike Tomlin said Monday the four PUP listers who aren’t as of now confirmed to be out for the foreseeable future like Mike Adams — Gradkowski, Maurkice Pouncey, Senquez Golson and Shawn Lemon — will be evaluated after the day off.
They’ll roll in camp with who they have, but I’d be willing to bet, if Gradkowski eventually ends up on injured reserve, they’d kick the tires on a veteran quarterback to compete with Jones for the backup job.
____________________
Lupe Sanchez: How is Le’Veon Bell’s knee not 100 percent? It’s been six months of recuperation. Do you detect any level of concern among anyone at camp about that?
Neal: None at all. One interesting characteristic of Bell is he’s very deliberate in his answers, and he’s a talker. He was sort of in auto-response mode when he was asked multiple times about the status of his suspension, but when the subject of his knee came up, he got very specific and thoughtful. His response was essentially that his right knee didn’t feel quite as good as his left knee did, and he said it’s about 95 percent healthy.
I’m not one to judge the depths one person measures his body, but Bell seems in-tune enough with his he really could feel a five percent difference — whatever that is — from one knee to the other. What I know is he has been running well, there’s no limp, I’m not even sure he was wearing a brace during practices. He’s running routes, cutting sharply and getting up field, every time about 20 yards beyond the whistle blowing. It looks to me he’s in phenomenal shape, and perhaps that five percent is the difference between 90 catches and 40, but I doubt it.
____________________
Kilo Echo: What have you observed from coaching intern Dexter Jackson thus far — any Tampa 2 influence?
Neal: One play I noticed was a deep throw from Jones, I believe, to Darrius Heyward-Bey (two good practices from DHB, by the way). Shamarko Thomas was down the seam, and broke deep to his left, tracking the ball. Great effort for a non-contact drill, and incidentally bumped into DHB, who still made the catch. Thomas’s helmet flew off, and he got up, yelling in frustration. Tomlin was out there right away praising Thomas, picking up his helmet and shouting encouragement at him.
Schematically, that’s where the strong safety should be in a Tampa 2. The fact Tomlin was all over the defensive player who couldn’t make the play but was where he should be speaks volumes about the current direction of the defense, especially considering the receiver made a great play.
What’s getting lost in the recent talk about where the cornerbacks are playing or even where the safeties are is the key component of the Tampa 2 defense. Ryan Shazier has been dropping into deep coverage often, and the outside linebackers have been trailing receivers underneath. To me, that’s more what defines a Tampa 2 defense, and to whatever degree they’re practicing that (don’t think variations of subpackages define the base defense) doesn’t mean much.
I don’t expect a wholesale change to a Tampa 2 defense. They’ve run remnants of it previously, so a few plays over two days of padless practices should be taken for what it is. I’ll say this, though. We’ll revisit the topic again, but watch what Shazier does on the first snap of the season. That’ll tell us more than training camp will.
____________________
Biz: Welcome Neal. So how do you think this NFL/Tom Brady mess will work out?
Neal: Very happy to be here, thank you!
Simply put, expect Brady to be on the field in Week 1. The NFL doesn’t have any more evidence of wrongdoing than it had against the Saints in the Bountygate affair. Less, even. They had emails of the coach directly speaking of the cash pool doled out to players for hits in games. All they have is circumstantial evidence from a few low-level equipment guys, who may or may not talk.
Roger Goodell and the NFL have a record in court similar to Lionel Hutz, and the continued belief that the CBA somehow trumps labor law shows hubris to the level previously unknown in major professional sports. Their mistake in all of the player conduct control they wished to take on was assuming the players would accept Goodell’s ruling willy nilly.
The Steelers were the only team to not approve the CBA, and their reason for rejecting it was the massive amount of power being given to the commissioner in regards to player conduct matters. Suspending a player for four games based on a report that it’s more likely than not he helped, to some degree, deflate footballs, is attacking a fly with a rocket launcher. They may have something of a case in regards to Brady not being fully cooperative in the investigation, but even that doesn’t seem particularly strong, considering they were asking him to turn over his personal cell phone, or at least allow the league to strip it down and see all his personal information.
A fine seemed more in line with reasonability. Because they went for four games, this will end up in court, Brady’s army of lawyers will get an injunction to stay his suspension until the results of the hearing, and we’ll see him trot out on the field at Gillette Stadium Sept. 10.
____________________
briangahagen:Why isn’t the NFL conducting the appeal for Bell at a quicker pace? It’s dragging with no resolution in sight. Is it posturing or is it a matter of availability between the NFL AND Bell’s camp?
Neal: (Update: Bell and the NFL are reportedly in discussions about possibly reducing his suspension) First off, we don’t know whether it’s dragging out. We just know no ruling has been made public. The league provides no timetable on appeals. The Brady issue is a different situation, considering the depth of the suspension, the reasons for that suspension and the pending legal action that’s almost certainly going to come from it.
Second, the NFL has firmly established punishments for just two areas: DUI and drug possession. Bell got two games for the DUI and one game for possession (LeGarrette Blount also got a one-game suspension for possession). I really don’t know what he’ll be able to argue, outside his quick completion of all court-required actions.
Considering Goodell has his suspensions challenged in court on what seems like a monthly basis, he’s going to need one of them to stick here and there, and I’d say the one in which he has firmly stated punishments will be the one that sticks.
Bell will miss three games this year, I’m 95 percent certain of that. I’ve also learned predicting the decisions made by the NFL is about as reliable as betting on the weather.
____________________
TheGreatOne21: I never understood why there is so much emphasis (rightly so) on rookies 4 4 time, but when it comes to the speed of a current team (especially skill positions) of each player there is no 40 yard timing to see if a player has lost a step or 2 or even three.
Neal: I cut down some of your question, and I apologize for that, but this is the meat of it.
Fans emphasize 40-times among prospects more than the team is actually discussing it. However, a player needs to be fast to play this game. Conversely, fans associate draft position and athletic attributes as being worth a bit more overall as their careers progress more than they probably should.
It’s clear when a player has diminishing athletic skill, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t play the game anymore. Experience can make a player faster on the field. Because of that, I don’t think measuring their 40-time after they’ve been drafted really provides any kind of insight. The draft is simply about potential. Take a lump of clay, you’re trusting yourself as a sculptor or artist to make it into what you want it to be, but you can only pick one kind of clay. You’d analyze the attributes of that clay, and ultimately decide on the one you feel you could mold into whatever object you wanted it to be.
The 40-time is only one part of a highly detailed evaluation that factors in things we can’t fully understand. It just happens to be the easiest to understand, and the most popular.
Drill that down even further, does he have at least acceptable speed? Does his 40-time translate to what the scouts thought of him speed-wise on film? That’s what the Combine is about.
____________________
iisbaer89: It is a tough road towards another Super Bowl for the Steelers. How will it affect them, eyeing the post-season, that they are going to play the arguably toughest regular season schedule of the entire NFL?
Neal: Two schools of thought: One, it’s tough enough of a schedule to cost them two or even three games from the previous season, and they’ll fall back into that .500 range, probably not qualifying for the playoffs. Two, iron sharpens iron, and the Steelers become a stronger team by playing stronger opponents.
Let’s keep in mind, in regards to the defense (lots of questions about that here), they’re playing against one of the best offenses in the NFL every day in practice. That’s a point defensive players have mentioned frequently at camp so far. The Browns play against a terrible passing offense every day in practice, for example. By that line of thinking, the Steelers’ defense will have prepared itself to take on at least the offense-heavy teams littered all over their schedule.
Fans look at the schedule strictly from the Steelers’ perspective, and rightly so, but what are the Ravens saying about traveling to Pittsburgh on a short week to take on the Steelers with Bell in the game? A fully stocked Steelers team hung 43 points on them last year. Roethlisberger put up what I feel is one of the greatest offensive performances in the history of the league against the Colts last year (someone else mentioned that), and the Patriots decimated that defense as well. Did the Colts improve much defensively?
Winning in Baltimore and Seattle later in the year won’t be easy, but those teams aren’t geeked up to face a Steelers offense with Le’Veon Bell on the field either.
____________________
bpn8pitt: Are the Steelers in the market for an offensive tackle, considering Mike Adams will miss most of training camp?
Neal: They’re going to see what they have in Alejandro Villanueva, Mitchell Van Dyk and Kevin Whimpey before they look to make a move. Adams will miss camp, that’s true, but he’s not on injured reserve at this time. Should his injury continue to affect him at the point the 53-man roster is being decided, it’s possible they look for a veteran backup, but my feeling is — and this ties in with other questions posted regarding the future of Kelvin Beachum — they’d really like one of their undrafted guys to step up.
Villanueva has looked pretty good so far. He has the length needed for the position. From the Steelers’ perspective, what they would really like is to see him continue to work (much like Beachum did in the early stages of his career) and win a spot. That would give them flexibility, not just with Beachum’s contract situation but with Ramon Foster‘s as well. Both are free agents next year, and the team has already sunk a huge amount of money into Maurkice Pouncey, David DeCastro and Marcus Gilbert.
Kevin Colbert once said something to the effect of not being able to fill an entire offensive line of first round picks. The Steelers haven’t quite done that, but they’re already one of the most expensive lines in the league, and they don’t have a left guard or left tackle clearly identified right now for 2016 and beyond. They can probably get Foster back on an affordable deal, but Beachum’s market value is huge. If, say, Villanueva could earn a backup job this year, and be groomed to start at left tackle, Beachum could be moved inside. That still would require a sizable extension, one he’s certainly earned.
They could let Beachum walk, give the extension to DeCastro (he’s scheduled to earn around $8 million next year on his fifth-year club option) and slide Villanueva into the left tackle position, but again, that’s more cap money spent on the offensive line. The Steelers have over $145 million against the cap for their top 51 players in 2016. The cap itself for 2016 won’t be set until next offseason, but it’s $143 million now, and several of the players in that top 51 now won’t be on the team. So you’re looking at being at the cap, more or less, and that’s without contracts for a left tackle and a left guard, or the draft class being signed. They’ll be able to carry over some space from this year as well (they’re $7 million and change under it now) which will help, but it’s also the reason signing a free agent now becomes more challenging.
Contrary to the opinions of some, the Steelers are not in a great position in terms of the cap next year, and the departures of a few key veterans appears imminent. And those kinds of moves would have to be made before a Beachum extension could be negotiated.
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stein.ryan: How about a random and fun one Neal. Name the 4 Steeers (players or coaches) who would fare best in a Steel Cage match. Then pick your winner!
Neal: We saw William Gay deliver a nasty People’s Elbow to Cam Heyward in warmups Monday. You’d like to think he should at least get a nod for that, but no, not in comparison to a Battle Royale between James Harrison, Jack Lambert, Greg Lloyd and Joe Greene.
Such a battle would seem capable of undoing the laws of physics, tearing the fabric of the universe in such a way the planet would be rendered unlivable.
Lambert would be fighting until the bitter end, an end he simply couldn’t fend off due to the sheer size of his competitors, and his turf toe injury that tragically cut his Hall of Fame career in half. Lloyd couldn’t make up the 50 pounds difference between himself and Harrison, but both would eventually fall to Greene.
Our People’s Champion.