Gainwell to the Bucs...

2 year/ 14 million, 10 million guarateed


https://steelersdepot.com/2026/03/schultz-steelers-losing-rb-kenneth-gainwell-to-buccaneers/

 

Damn. Wish Steelers would have kept him.

 

It's ok we have playmakers all over the field...

 

For the money he made with the Bucs, all is well. Would’ve been good to originally sign him to 3 years. But maybe he wanted a prove it deal.

 

I guess it’s all but guaranteed we sign a lesser free agent rb or draft one

 

I don’t like it but the guaranteed for RB most would advise against it I guess

He was our Offense last year.

 

I knew he would get more than that lil bit a money being floated around.

 

Apparently not. Dowdle is an upgrade.

 

Couldn’t disagree more

 

Dowdle has rushed for over 1,000 yards in a season twice. Gainwell set a career high last season with 537. Dowdle is averaging 4.6 yards per carry for his career. Gainwell is averaging 4.5. Dowdell thrived in McCarthy's offense in Dallas. Sure, Gainwell is a better receiver, but his volume last year was inflated by the Steelers' scheme.

This also allows the Steelers to use Warren more in the role in which he thrives, as a third-down back. That doesn't mean he won't start, but the way the touches and snaps are distributed will be different.

Disagree all you like, but the facts support my claim that this is an upgrade.

 

which isnt saying much.

 

Explain.

Rico= back to back seasons of 1,000 yard seasons and averaged 4.6
Gainwell = half that on yardage or worse.

 

Umm yeah, Exactly!

 

Thanks for being the best part of the Offense last season.

 

Guy have the best hands on the team and these fools didn't sign him.
This team going to stink

 

Dang to me that is a big loss. They should've let Warren hit the road. I know we just signed him last year I think.

 

This is a great comment IMO.

It's true that he was voted MVP.

But it's mostly because we didn't have anyone who stood out on offense.

Like how Mason pushing Kenny to the bench was mostly about Kenny being bad, not Mason being good.

 

Except one is true, and the other is trolling fiction that ignores the injury that kept Pickett out for about a month.

 

I agree that Mason originally got the job because (1) Kenny got hurt and (2) Mitch is bad.

But when Kenny was healthy again, he was benched.

And he never played for the Steelers again.

That's not what you do as a team when "he was really our QB1".

 

When Pickett returned, he had been sitting for how long again? You know this, but you decidd to troll anyway because that's exactly what we need, yet another thread turning into trolling about a guy who has been gone for two years.

 

He didn't dress for 4 games, but Tomlin said he was cleared to play in the 4th one.

It seems like he opted not to dress because he would have been behind both Mason AND Mitch. The company line here is because he didn't get enough reps in practice that week.

Here's what Tomlin said about that (from an article from Farabaugh and Saunders and from the Depot):

KP did participate in on-field warmups. But didn't play. There are several reports (like the first link above) that say that's because he refused to dress (because he would have been QB3). One of these reports was from M Madden, so I completely get not wanting to believe it.

But I think Kenny's non-denial denial supports the argument here.

Here's what Kenny said about it:

The bold parts are Kenny supporting the idea that he didn't dress because he was the QB3. The orange part is him apparently trying to contradicting what Tomlin said about him being medically cleared (to try to save face?).

This kind of long winded, carefully clarified non-denial is the kind of thing PR firms come up with.

If he was actually not-cleared medically (assumes Tomlin just lied to everyone to make Pickett look like a *****), then his answer would be something like "These reports are BS. I did not opt out of the game. I was not cleared to play."

We wouldn't get the qualification of "no talk of being the QB2" or I'm OK to dress now because I'm the QB2.

I don't fault Kenny for wanting to leave when we brought in Wilson. But it does look like he threw a tantrum about being the QB 3 here.

But this is all side-tracking the point. Which was that Gainwell getting the MVP was more about not having any big play makers on the team.

 

Yes, I remember the unsubstantiated reports that were debunked by the player and the team, the ones you are trying to use to prop up your nonsense.

That quote is not him saying he refused to play if he wasn't starting, or at least No. 2. It is Pickett explaining the team's decision. I don't doubt that the doctors said he could play, but he wasn't 100 percent, so Tomlin chose a healthy Rudolph over an injured Pickett, but man, you are seeing things that aren't there.

Yes, this is a tangent that you chose because some folks want to troll every thread with this nonsense. That is the only reason to use the Pickett situation from over two years ago as a comparison to Gainwell winning the team MVP award.

 

As I said in the post that you responded to, if it was just the reports (e.g., Madden, who's useless) I wouldn't have believed it.

But Kenny's statement reads like all the people who denied visiting a certain tropical island (and were later proven to be there).

He's doing the political trick of denying a very specific thing which isn't (all of) what he was being accused of.

I agree that people who want to believe what Kenny is saying won't scrutinize it. But if anyone looks at it critically, they can see that it's so much easier to call BS on this than if he came out and gave a simple and unqualified denial.

He could have said "Anyone who says I would choose not to dress in an NFL game because I wasn't the starter is full of ****". But instead we got a statement that looks like it was crafted by a crisis PR team."

Instead, he says that he wasn't going to be the QB2. But he would be the QB2 the next week, so he'll dress.