Art Rooney II ‘Not Closing The Door’ On Steelers Trading For QB

Well done, me guy. You did your homework. Still. I don't see this happening. Not ever. They're going to give Pickett the chance. You know this and you're going to have to live with it.

 

LOL Ok.

 

This talk means nothing to me. Basically he says we're not shutting the door on making the team better.

He's keeping the door open. They'd be a fool not to.

Newsflash... Justin Fields will not be a Steeler next year. I 100% guarantee you can smash those hopes.

They will not overpay for a poor man Cam Newton 2.0.

Expect an offer to Mason Rudolph with those two as the QBs bye by Mitch

 

I know it wont happen... I guess I'm not even hard advocating us to do trade for Fields either. I was mostly just pointing out that there are a few options available that are better than what we have, Fields is just one of them. In Free Agency alone there is Cousins, Mayfield, Minshew, Brissett, Browning, and Rudolph who I would say at this point are all better players that Pickett right now. Tradeable assets that are better are Fields and Wilson. It doesn't mean that we SHOULD go get these guys just because they are better (gotta look at cost of acquiring and what types of deals we have to give them), but the options I like the best are probably Cousins and Fields. Both are incredibly low risk because we wouldn't have to tie ourselves to them for more than 2 years. Yes, they would cost money... but I'd rather risk a bit of money than risk tying ourselves to an unproven player long term or risk precious draft capital and years of our future on someone we aren't sold on. Cousins is a far better player, but older and coming off injury. Fields is less proven but young and still has a bit of promise.

I know we are going to stay with KSP in 2024. I don' think we are even seriously considering other options.... I was just trying to point out the viability of our other available options.

 

Yeah he will land a starting job in Pittsburgh hopefully... Dj & Pickens are CLEAR in their preferences... not speculative... The comments & more importantly obvious team cohesion & behavior of the players is not at all speculative as it all happened right in front of our eyes. You're pretending that the reasons aren't obvious... I think Rudolph is a starter based on his play,,,, & his stats at the end of this season back that up 100%... in fact what he did in 3 games would put him on track to be rated above several of the guys on your list... Now that part is speculative but still... Since when are pocket passers incapable of success in the NFL..? We'd all love to have a mahomes or Allen but most "mobile" Qbs struggle passing & spend alot of time injured... I'd argue that Rudolph is atleast as mobile as big Ben ever was...

 

You're also forgetting that the capital required to get those picks would be used to get Fields... JFC

 

I'm not forgetting that at all, I'm just not that worried about the price. Fields is just going to be cheap since Chicago doesn't have any leverage.

League consensus according to Jeremy Fowler is that Fields is worth a 2nd or 3rd round pick. If he could be had for a 3rd (I'd balk at a 2nd round price, and all honesty unless there are multiple teams very interested in Fields I doubt he goes for any higher than a 3rd), then we'd hardly be losing out on capital that could replenish our team. We'd still have 2 firsts, 2 seconds, and a third rounder to be selected all before Fields finishes his 5th year option (not to mention the 4th-7th rounders we have).

 

Not me . Its a "win now" move if we did it, very much in a similar vein to the Rams bringing in Stafford to try to win it all.

Cousins would make this team a ton better. He is a very good player, and we wouldn't be tied to him for too long financially. An Achilles injury worries me a lot less on a pocket QB than it does for any other position. It would be highly unlikely that the move is a negative or a burden in the near future. The only question would be if we could win it all with him at the helm.

I'm sure Pittsburgh would be an attractive destination for him as well. Solid run game, quality young targets, a pretty good defense... We could definitely make a run.

 

That's 25m that could be used for a Minshew or Brissett and a starter on the DL or CB plus a 3rd potential starter lost via draft capital traded. GTFOH that that's a low risk deal especially considering Shefter is claiming the Bears are still seeking a #1st Rd pick: https://www.si.com/nfl/steelers/news/pittsburgh-steelers-learn-asking-price-justin-fields

 

They can "seek" all they want, doesn't mean they are getting it. They've all but telegraphed that they are going QB and they aren't likely to get the highest price with no leverage. The rest is just preference and "what-ifs" from there. Fields is better than Minshew and Brissett, but its a potential FA that could help us and the 3rd rounder (which could be anywhere between Kendrick Green and Javon Hargrave). Could that FA and 3rd round pick help? Sure. They could also suck too. I'm not even advocating that we do it, because I know we aren't going to (I'd rather just spend the money on Kirk Cousins anyways)... I'm just pointing out that there is very little risk involved, and that is true.

Nobody is saying we're paying Fields 25 million a year. He counts against the cap like 6 million bucks in 2024 and his 5th year option is estimated to be somewhere around 25 million in 2025. If he ends up being a gsolid player for us we can extend him and lower the cap, or he could be a stud and we can extend him at a higher amount. If he ends up not being good enough, we just let him walk. He either turns out to be good and we win, or he doesn't and we can wash our hands of it and all it would cost was a 3rd round pick and 30 million bucks. That is EXTREMELY low risk when you consider what QB's generally go for, and when you consider the other option being intentionally sucking so we can pick in the top 10 hoping to draft the right guy.

 

That's his 5th year option and what we would be paying him in 2025... jfc

 

That's... what I said? We'd be paying him 25 million for one year. Just one. He would count 6 million for 2024 (ironically over a million less that what we would pay Trubisky if we don't cut him). We don't have to sign him long term. He could play 2 years, see how it goes, and then we can decide if we like him enough to stay or if we want to just let him walk. The only way its a bad move for us is if he is so atrocious that we are worse off with him than we are with KSP (I would find this scenario to be highly unlikely). I'd say its a move that has a decent/medium ceiling but a pretty high floor.

 

Which is still incredibly stupid accounting for that costing us 3 starters (payroll related) and a 4th player in draft capital, for a player that's never going to realize his potential. If he was half decent, the Bears would be building around him, especially considering that they need a WR and T which is very feasible in a guys like Alt, OT from PSU and a couple of solid WR's going in the top ten. This isn't a low risk/high reward move. Picking up Dwayne Haskins was a low risk/high reward move. If the Bears were to cut Fields and we picked him up at half the price without the loss of draft capital then by all means, jump on it. This is lunacy.

 

i sure hope it is fields.

maybe they trade TJ watt to the browns for deshaun watkins.

now see how dumb both of those things sound?

 

Cousins is 35. Hey that Brady guy won a SB at 150 so anything is possible.

If we got Cousins and he somehow did it he'd join Unitas and Staubach as 35 year old's to win it. Good company.

 

I can these line of reasoning. All I'm thinking about is all those damn young stud QB's in the AFC he'd have to step over. He'd miss the NFC

 

If they take the 5th year option, it is fully guaranteed.
So if Fields completely craps the bed, the team will be paying $31M for 1 year of bad service.
(It may be spread out over two years, but it doesn't go away.)

Trubishky at least has a Pro-Bowl season on his resume. Although it was long odds he would get back to that level, at least the team knew he could achieve that.

Fields is still unproven. Even if Fields was not given the 5th year option, it seems unreasonable to pay almost as much as Tribs without a good season under his belt. (Pickett is already on the team and under contract, so keeping him around to kick the tires makes sense.)

 

Johnson is the one who stated a preference, but it it is comical to argue that a pair of immature, selfish players should decide the course of the franchise.

It was three games, two against horrid defenses and one against an opponent that did not care if it won or lost. When they finally faced a real opponent in a game that mattered for both teams, The Steelers were down 21-0 before Rudolph got them going and he threw a killer interception.

Your take on mobility makes even less sense. There are plenty of mobile quarterbacks who are effective and durable. It's not like Pickett is going to run like Jalen Hurts. You also show that you don't really know what you are talking about if you think Rudolph is as mobile Roethlisberger early in his career. Roethlisberger was always a pocket passer first, but he could run early in his career. He also had fantastic presence and movement in the pocket, two areas where Rudolph still struggles. One reason he hangs in the pocket is he seems to have no feel at all for when the rush is getting close to him.

 

YES Minshew has a beard but i always remember his stache.

 

It wouldn't cost us 3 or 4 starters at all. It would be gaining a starting QB that is better than the one we have, and it would make us essentially move money around to accommodate it. It MIGHT cost us a shot at a reasonable FA in 2025. If we wanted we could sign guys and back load deals to clear the cap in 2025 so it wouldn't necessarily keep us from adding in FA. It would also cost us a 3rd round pick which may or may not be a starter at some point (according to most draft data a 3rd round pick has less than a 30% chance at being a starting caliber player). Its essentially costing us a single FA signing, and a pick that has a 30% chance of being a starter, all for a 2 year trial on a decent QB to see if he can be a good one. Its +1, then -1... at the cost of a lottery ticket that has a 30% win rate. So really at worst +1, -2. The upside is much higher in this case because Fields has already proven he is a starting caliber player in the league, its just finding out how high his ceiling actually is.

Haskins was essentially a no risk/low reward. I loved the kid as an OSU guy myself, but he had proven he wasn't an NFL caliber QB in his time in Washington. He was worse than Pickett even has been. We were picking him up for essentially free to see if we could turn him into a decent back up. The chances he became a quality starting caliber player were very close to 0. In Fields' case, the chances that he is a starting caliber QB is essentially 100%. Which is why the higher price is warranted. He is already an okay starter. You take the risk on him ONLY if you think his ceiling is higher than what he has shown in Chicago (due to both playing for a bad team and having better players/system for him installed here). The reward could be that Fields turns into Jalen Hurts. It could also be that he is who he is, and he is just a mediocre starting QB. The risk is low because we KNOW he is at least an okay starter and the price to attain him is low for the caliber of player you are getting (and we don't HAVE to commit long term). The reward is high because there is a legitimate chance he could be better in the right situation.

I just don't see how this costs us as much as you think it will. Again, this isn't going to happen... we're gonna ride Mr. Sixteen for at least half of 2024. But IF this was something we were considering, it wouldn't be the end of the world. It would be relatively cheap and the chances for disaster are miniscule.