Cameron Stephenson Out Of Football For Over A Year Now

After getting cut from his rookie training camp with us in 2007, the 5th round pick (#156 overall) was signed and then released by Green Bay, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Jacksonville (where he appeared in two games), before dropping out of the NFL altogether and joining the UFL's Hartford Colonials in 2010, where -- according to his wikipedia page -- he was "the backbone of the offensive line" at RG. It appears that is no longer a team.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Stephenson

Pretty humiliating and pretty pathetic, if you ask me. What were we thinking? What a loser!!

 

Who?

 

I don't think there is that much expectation out of a 5th round pick.

After the 4th round it is an honor just to be drafted IMO.

 

Starting a thread just to call a guy a loser? Really?

 

This seems out of character. I suspect there to be sarcasm at work. Brain not working well enough to tell. Damn you, hangover.

 

I guess anyone who has ever tried something and failed is a humiliated, pathetic loser.

:roll:

 

I'd guess that would be me!

 

Me too. I haven't succeeded at everything I've tried either. I guess I should just go crawl in a hole somewhere.

 

not true later rounds are the backbone of the team daft used to 16 rounds so a 5th is a early pick

 

So what we're saying is, if it was 1942, then Cam Stephenson would be a disappointment.


Surreal.

 

http://www.thesteelersfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2758

 

I guess if it was 1942, Dixon would also be a disappointment.

Who would win in a fight between Stephenson and Dixon?

 

Both men were pick #156. In 1942, pick #156 was in round 17. The 5th round began with pick #31. Not that that was the original point.

 

Funny, Snack. The difference is that when Dixon came into the league there were some expectations that he could at least become a pretty good backup QB. In fact, I remember a lot of analysts saying that if it weren't for the devastating ACL injury in college, he would be a first rounder. This has a little more substance than someone who was a late round afterthought, don't you think? And getting beaten out by Curtis Painter would be pretty humiliating, don't you think? Did you see the Colts play any this year?

 

I know, I was more going off SteelMojo's post there.

I'm not sure the comparison holds - could we say that Stephenson had a franchise G to keep him on the bench? - but then, I wouldn't brand Dixon an utter failure, and certinaly not in comparison to Stephenson's "career". So I'm not going to argue.

 

I posted about Painter in the original thread. I haven't seen enough of him play to see if he's really bad, mechanics-wise, or if he's been basically left to rot on the bench because he was playing behind superman. Sometimes players just need to be properly rooted and get the right breaks before they can blossom properly. So unless I saw the actual work out, I'm not sure how humiliating it is for DD. Especially since he's dropped his whole claim to be looking for a starting slot, thank God.

 

Oh, I don't know. Seems to me that since both guys were taken at pick #156 only a year apart, we pretty much risked exactly the same amount of draft stock on both of them.

The difference in their careers is that Dixon made the team for a few seasons, saw some action, didn't live up to hopeful expectations but didn't do so badly either (hello, took BAL to overtime before his first mistake), had a badly timed injury, and was eventually shipped off. Stephenson was cut from his rookie training camp and except for typical practice squad bouncing, that was basically the end of his career.

The difference in their expecations is big, like you said. No one knew anything about Stephenson, no one expected much, he was cut, we moved on. Some of us were excited about Dixon, and all of us were curious. He was looking like a 1st rounder the year before his injury, and we got him at #156 in the 5th. So if he had turned out like we all hoped, he would have been a tremendous steal. That's why we drafted him. But we're going to complain that he didn't live up to 1st, 2nd, or 3rd round status when we got him in the 5th? If we treat him like the 5th he was, he wasn't a bad pick at all.

I don't know how reasonable it is to have a 3rd string 5th round QB only play 2 1/2 games, finish with a record of 1-1 with the loss still being a very good game against the best defense we saw all year, and then say he's done. If we really needed him (like if we didn't have Ben and needed a QB), he would have played way more and possibly developed. Can you really say that the only three games of his career were bad, given that they were the first three games of his career?? I'm not saying they were great. They were hit and miss. Ben has a handful of games worse than them every year.

But I know, he was first behind Leftwich on the depth chart, then Batch. I won't get into how he might have performed in practice or how the coaches feel about youth and upside versus experience and a known quality. I also won't get into how super horrible Painter looked at times last year, or how he almost beat us if not for JH burning Castonzo, or how Painter is more experienced and played on a bad team. I'm not here to defend Dixon's career, I'm here to say if we spend a 5th round pick on Andrew Luck this year, and he turns out to suck or be a career backup, we shouldn't call him a bust any more than we call Stephenson or Chris Scott a bust. The fact that we got a guy with so much potential that he was viewed more like a 2nd round pick than a 5th round pick is a sign of a good draft selection. Not everything works out.

 

I didn't disagree with the pick when the Steelers made it and I still don't. In fact, I thought it was pretty low risk given where we were able to get him. Again, you may be missing my point here. Dixon wanted to leave the Steelers to go to a team where he could be the starter. I don't blame him for that and I wish him well. When you have that mindset and then you lower your expectations to a more realiistic level, to become a backup, and then get beaten out as the backup by Curtis Painter, that's got to be a tough pill for Dixon to swallow. The NFL has a way of snapping people back into reality at times. Hate to cross threads but Wallace is in the process of finding that out now.

 

the worst part for me is, we picked him there. he got beaten out by stapleton an udfa and teamate of his. he didn't last either. but what's worse is we still haven't filled the position and still hoping we draft one that can start. colbert is aweful at picking linemen. he got lucky with pouncey.

 

Gilbert showed some signs of promise last year as well. Let's hope he continues to progress instead of regressing into that sophomore slump this year.

 

not what i said read my post smdh My post isnt even about Cam Stephenson! Da Stellars said "I don't think there is that much expectation out of a 5th round pick. After the 4th round it is an honor just to be drafted" I quoted him on that and said thats untrue

 

Its true that later picks can fill out a roster, especially on special teams. But look at the Steelers past drafts, I would say its 50% chance that a 5th round pick even makes the 53 man roster. There are only so many spots. You would have to royally screw up if you are a 1st through 3rd round pick and get cut in your first camp with a team. If you are from rounds 5 through 7 its a lot easier.

 

This thread is all over the place (just like some of the other threads on the front page - I guess I've contributed a bit to the schizophrenic nature of a couple...) Anyhow, I'm seeing a couple extremes that a 5th round pick should be lucky to make the team and then other statements about a 5th rounder would be a bust if they weren't a perennial starter and stud. There are certainly many guys in the mid rounds that don't amount to much, but there are also some real gems that our FO find in those rounds too. One gem like Antonio Brown in the 6th round makes up for a whole handful of the Cam Stephenson's, Mike Humpal's and Matt Kranchik's that didn't pan out. There are plenty of other guys drafted in higher rounds than Stephenson over the past few years that haven't amounted to squat either across the league. I guess I just don't undertand the whole point of this thread and why someone feels it necessary to bash the dude.

 

I'm in shock that a post about Cam Stephenson has 23 replies(with this one), WOW

 

Just wait until we get started on Marvin Philip...