Will Burns be released?

Well that's what camp is for. Weed out the competition and see who earns a roster spot. On the Sutton note, he hasn't impressed me all that much despite being a relatively high pick also. For a bit there he was being picked on with the long throws getting beat pretty good.

It's good there is a competition at the position. Hopefully it translates to the field. Someone will be getting released Burns appears to be the odd man out. We'll see.

 

The Steelers defense was 10th in passing yards, 7th in yards per passing attempt.
For all the problems with the Steelers DBs and giving up the big plays, there were 20 other teams that were worse.
Maybe the other teams would be better off with our #2, instead of deciding to stay with what they had.

 

Maybe,

We should have optimism with our additions ?

(Insert HeinzMustard with optimism here?)

 

The numbers don't always translate. 9-6-1 does though.

 

Pat Mahomes 3 first quarters TD passes, Joe Flacco's 2 first quarter TD passes, Sean Davis knocking a INT out of Hadens hands and Derek Carr marching down the field for the go ahead score didn't help either.

 

I never said it was. If these year's defense performs the same as last year's defense, I would expect another 9 win season.

 

If I had been in better shape in college and had been taller and thinner....

Big if....

 

I agree on all points, and I’m optimistic, but until it happens, it’s still an if.

 

Had the defense got a stop on the Raiders final drive, Boswell wouldn't have been attempting a FG in the first place. It works both ways.

 

At the end of the season, that is the only numbers that count.

 

5 plays per game make the difference in a season.

 

The other things that were in play were the defense, or lack of. The rankings don't breakdown the fact that this team has had very few meaningful defensive stops in the last several seasons. That's why I brought up the record, it usually speaks the truth. The teams with the top rankings don't make the playoffs, the teams with the top records do. I'm not sure that was your point.

 

You beat me to it.

 

A recent Artie article:

https://triblive.com/sports/kevin-g...artie-burns-shows-accountability-to-steelers/

 

How does 13-3 from the previous season translate?

I've seen people arguing that number isn't reliable, because the Steelers had a lot of fortunate breaks, and could have easily lost a few of those games. The same can be done in the opposite direction, that erasing a few unfortunate breaks would have improved on 9-6-1.

(If you think that the Steelers had a defense worthy of the 13-3 record in 2017, then I'll stop debating.)

 

An outlier can exist in any and all situations. Aside from that, as far as fortunate and unfortunate breaks going in both directions, we've both basically made the same point on that.
The 13-3 season found the Steelers overall defense and pass defense ranked in the top 5 (according to this: http://www.espn.com/nfl/statistics/team/_/stat/total/position/defense/year/2017 ). If we're judging by rankings, wouldn't top 5 be worthy of 13-3? That brings us back to my point on rankings. It's just numbers added up and divided by 16, not accounting for individual situations.