Jason Worilds Is Drawing Lots Of Interest

Could sign him if they cut Troy. How many seasons does Troy have left anyway?

 

Troy is only under contract for 2014 they won't cut him.

 

The Steelers always let their players explore what is out there. If Worilds
has an offer the Steelers can't or won't match
then BYE BYE. This is another reason, that people should be watching the LB's in the combine yesterday. I am sure the Steelers were.

 

Does anyone have a link to Worild's injury history? I'm seeing a lot of claims that he's "banged up", but it's clear he didn't play much in the previous seasons because he was second-string primarily (rather than injury), including the start of last season.

I've done a quick search but can't seem to find much, other than articles claiming he's "often injured", but is there anywhere with the actual numbers and injury types?

 

I know he had a wrist injury a couple years ago that was serious.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if this is a rumor started by his agent to garner interest.

 

I don't have a link but it seemed like every time someone went down Worilds was hurt also.

 

There is so much more than to this worilds issue than what's on the surface. We must look at the pro's & con's of both sides.

1) Keeping Worilds---
.........Pros- We can stay in the 3-4. Without effective passrushing OLBers the 3-4 is useless. Behind Worilds is JJ who showed he just isn't ready to be a 3-4 OLB. He needs more time or a position change. Woodley is too injury prone. Carter should not be back,period. He showed he just isn't a NFL caliber OLB. Even if we keep Worilds we'll need to draft a OLB by Rd3/4 to develop and stabilize the Position. It frees up day one on draftday to draft the BPA-period.
..........Cons- Its going to cost and hit the cap pretty hard which is going to affect our FA maneuvers. Its going to also probably force an expensive out, which may not be a bad thing. It ties us to a player long term with injury issues so how much do we get from him, will it be like Woodley?

Loosing Worilds-
...........Pros-Saves Cap money. Sends a message, you need to play to get that 2nd contract. Should give us a decent comp pick next year.
...........Cons- It forces a 1st Rd pick on OLBer if we're going to stay in the 3-4 or.........
..... It forces a shift to the 4-3 ( which may not be a bad thing ) because it leaves the OLB position without depth or starting quality players.

Worilds IS the KEY UFA signing we have this year and if we stay in the 3-4 we MUST resign him & draft another OLBer by Rd. 4. This will allow us to address the CB position and add an offensive weapons in the 1st two rds.

Cajun-

 

Or they could sign a FA or keep Woodley. JJ doesn't need a position change he is the first rookie OLB to start for DL. He needs to bulk up some but he flashed a bunch of potential and was playing really good football down the stretch. The steelers aren't switching defenses anytime soon. Butler is going to keep the same basic system as DL. We don't have the personnel for the 4-3. In the 4-3 your pressure is coming from the line with the LBers playing more coverage and we don't have any speed rushing linemen. We could probably move Woodley to a DE in the 4-3 but he is about the only one. With the players we have now qbs would have all day to throw if we switched. Not many people would be able to run on us but that isn't the league anymore.

 

It would be foolish to throw a pile of money at Worilds simply because we're thin at that critical position. That's cause to fire Colbert, not to give Worilds a big contract. Like I said before, this reminds me of when we boxed ourselves into franchising Max Starks even though he had been benched and was only playing due to injury. That's poor roster management, and someone needs to press Colbert on that and our payday loan style of cap management.

 

QBs have all day now. And I disagree that JJ flashed much of anything as a rookie. The kid had trouble making plays even when he was matched up with a RB. He looked like he had just taken up playing football for the first time.

 

We see things so differently--- You say we could sign a FA OLB but who? Brian Orakpo? Shaun Phillips? Mike Neal? Money? Orakpo & Worilds will command top dollar and after that Phillips is old and Neal may be our best option but just how good is he? will we have a droppoff in production.

JJ- You and others keep saying he must be good because he's the 1st rookie to start under DL. In college his production was high but he fell to us because he ran a 4.9 40yd... pedestrian slow for OLB and after starting for us he got BENCHED for in-effectivenss...remember that? Everyone keeps forgetting he had only 1 sack with a lot more snaps than Worilds and got BENCHED. We gave up record amounts of yds AND points, loosing record (8-8) and I believe its because we lost our caller in foote and very poor play @ OLB........and IKE!!

QBs burned us all year because we ran a 3-4 with poor OLB play, so we better upgrade that position ( re-sign & start Worilds ) or switch to a 4-3 ( and I'm the only member here that thinks we can do that )....

*** side note*** Heyward-Hood-McLendon-Woods as a 4 man front would be disruptive.

Point being if we are to stay in the 3-4 we must re-sign Worilds AND draft a OLB mid Rds or draft Mack or Barr in the 1st RD and again in the Mid Rds/or a lower tier UFA..... Like it or not

Cajun-

 

Heywood would be disruptive. The other three are just warm bodies.

 

I'd be okay over-paying a little bit to keep Worilds. It's not like there will ever be a scenario where an NFL team doesn't have one overpaid player on their team... We gotta cut Ike, Foote, and L.Brown for starters and there's a solid 15 mil. If the cap keeps rising like the reports say, it's not like we wont be able to afford Worilds. Do you think there will be teams that exceed 7-8mil per year for Worlids? I don't. Give him a big signing bonus and keep the 1st year base salary low. Once he is signed we cut Woodley PRIOR to June 1st (which is basically biting a 580k bullet to get him off the books for good after 2014, saving us 14mil in 2015 and 12mil in 2016). Once Troy walks after this season (no more 8.25mil cap hit) we will be in pretty good cap shape.

 

The talk about switching to 4-3, or how effective JJ was etc. reminds me of that game last season where the defense was pretty awful in the first half, and then rock solid in the second. We all thought that there had been some adjustments, but the players were insistent that they had basically just executed better.

So is it scheme or execution? I'd go with the latter, and go with Cajun's last point - re-sign Worilds and draft a mid-round OLB, and no doubt bring in a fair few project UFAs - rather than a wholescale re-design of the D.

 

I thought we already set the record for fewest sacks...would we just be breaking our own? I couldn't really tell how those guys would do if asked to rush the passer,because they are really never asked too. I would love to see more of a attacking style of 3-4 but too me it seems we run it in its basic form,even after every year they say they are going to let our guys 'get after the QB'. It's basically the same drivel you hear every camp. The same one as " the skies the limit for the offense". I know we will never switch to a 4-3 as long as Lebeau is still breathing ,but IMO it could work. Let Woodley put his hand in the dirt which is more natural for him and may actually reduce his risk of leg related injuries. Then we can draft the best 'football" player in the draft,that being Aaron Donald.

We are stuck between a rock and a hard place with the Woodley/Worilds situation. It seems like a damned if you do damned if you don't. The reasons are many and "obvious". The thing that worries me about keeping both is that Worilds has shown nothing from the right side. So if by some miracle Woodley can stay healthy you would be overpaying for the production you get from the right side. Unless Woodley can show something on the right,but then what about Jarvis? We are pathetically weak at the OLB position and I'm not sure we can afford to lose either of them. Let's see how it all plays out with the salary cap seeming to rise everyday like the deficit. My first order of business would be to get rid of the pretenders at the position( ie Carter) and bring in somebody with actual potential.

 

Troy is likely to get an extension. Probably 3 additional years past 2014. Unless he blows out his knee, there's no way that 2014 is his last season here, or even his last at a healthy salary. That is not our history with aging vets. We will keep riding that horse until it simply can no longer take the load.

 

We are stuck with Woodley: The Steelers have to look long and hard at the deal it gave Woodley a six-year, $61 million contract in 2011. The contract itself isn't what limits the Steelers in the future. It's the restructures he's gotten. He has the second-highest dead money total in 2014 at $19.76 million, and $14.2 million in 2015. Hopefully they learned from that stupid mistake and don't repeat it with Worilds....

 

before we have to move JJ, or he doesn't improve from year one to year two, I'd hope a lot of people get fired.