Two-year extension for Jaylen Warren

He was better. But I wouldn't say much better.

After he left Edmunds could only get a vet minimum contract. Najee got a little more than that. So he didn't have to come back to the Steelers hat in hand like Edmunds did. I was maybe one of the few that thought we should have extended Edmunds after that cheap 1 year deal. He was an OK guy you could plug in while trying to find another starter IMO. Maybe we tried and he just didn't want to.

The difference is that Najee played on offense. And we force fed him. If Edmunds was a RB, he would have been similar. He was also very durable. Solid, but not big play capable.

And 5th year option wise, they were the same. Playing time tier (2nd lowest).

 

I get this. I think it's a disappointment that he didn't earn a 2nd contract. But I think it's about what you'd expect from a late first round RB. But it was a weak draft. And he might have been BPA-ish when we picked.

It's the main reason I didn't want to draft a RB that year. Because I think 5th year options on RBs are going to be bad bets most of the time.

The only position that's probably worse to draft in the 1st is center. The league bins all OL together. So if you give a C the 5th year option, you basically have to pay them like an above average LT. It's stupid and doesn't reflect how the UFA market works. So I think drafting Creed there would have been a mistake with the info we had at the time (I think all the OTs we were looking at were off the board and many were misses IIRC). But drafting PF over Creed was the only draft pick I remember ever really hating / complaining about.

 

These aren’t gotcha questions. I just think these are questions you can’t answer where Warren comes out looking better thus far this year based on predictions made about his speed and ability to break long gains better than Najee.

we aren’t running enough plays seems to be the angle but part of the reason is because the running game isn’t that good this year.

 

Edmunds can't be compared.
You are talking about a guy that can't find a team to keep him. He has been moved around 8 times since the Steelers 1st let him go. He's so bad that he didn't last on his 1st team for even a year, and has been shipped off multiple times in two different seasons, and not because of injuries , but because of play.
There is no comparison here.

 

I never hated him.
I hate nobody.
He's probably a great dude, and fun to hang with. He just sucks at playing Safety.
I pay more attention to the DBs in game than anything. He was terrible, and the fact that he's is on his 8 change, and that twice two of those teams didn't even keep him a whole season, and not once for injuries totally shows what others think.
If He wasn't a 1st round pick, and known to be one with physical attributes, he would already be out of the NFL.

 

Good to know the context.

I didn't mind Edmunds.

He was consistent and available. Certainly not a world beater. But decent as the almost-linebacker type of S. Certainly not deserving of a big contract. But given where our secondary was at the time I would have liked to have had him back on the cheap again. Wasn't mad about him leaving though.

I would also have liked to have Najee on that 4 year team vet type deal. But it's got to be hard for a 1st round pick to come back to the same team on a deal like that.

And both were in the same tier for the 5th year option. Since the options got bigger and became guaranteed, we've only given the option to guys who were in the top tier (TJ and Minkah). My guess is that we'd give an option to someone in the 2nd tier (1 real probowl...not injury replacement). But we haven't been good at drafting recently, so we don't have anyone who's been in this tier since the change.

 

A failed first round pick that is the only RB in Steelers history to rush for over 1,000 in each of his first four years in the league .

 

Absolutely

 

Or if Gainwell leaves in free agency they will draft another RB.

 

My money is riding on dense but the two are not mutually exclusive

 

And then crash out and burn

No second contract is a bust

 

They aren't good ones anyway.

And I did answer your questions. Even though I think you're not asking them in good faith.

I don't think you really read my answers though (too long...I know). But I've consistently said that one of Warren's issues is that he also doesn't break big runs. One of the reasons that he isn't a RB1. But I think most people find deficiencies easier to swallow from UDFAs than from 1st round picks.

Ultimately we're comparing two guys (Warren and Najee).

They both have bad YPC. This stat tells us that neither of them deliver big runs. You can see this in their "long" plays on pfr if you want to look it up. Neither of them is good at it. Although we can see that Warren does at least have one carry that's longer than Bettis' long in his final year in the NFL (as the lovable Fat(er?)-Jerome). I think this is telling us that neither of these guys are good starting RBs.

But there is a pretty big difference between the two. One has an above average success rate (Warren). The other has a below average success rate (Najee).

The irony here is that this tells us that Warren is the guy that all the Najee-fans said Harris was. This tells us that Warren (who is in similar "everyone knows we're running") situations at least keeps us on schedule at an above average rate. I don't want either of them as our starter. But if I had to pick someone to keep the seat warm while I'm looking for a longer term option, I'd rather have the guy who keeps us on schedule more often.

Najee had a below average success rate in every year with us. But he got 1000 yards because our offense mostly sucked and Tomlin likes running the wheels off RBs. Especially guys who don't fumble (which was Najee's 2nd super-power to go along with durability).

This (mercifully) started to change when Warren showed that he was excellent in pass pro. So he ate into Najee's PT more and more every year until the team saw them as having pretty much the same value (but Warren was cheaper because the CBA really screws RFAs).

I still think Tomlin's biggest mistake as a coach was not putting Blount and Bell in a timeshare. It would have made it much easier to manage that relationship (which is supposed to be Tomlin's superpower). And it would have kept Bell more fresh for the playoffs. Plus, it would have meant that we didn't play against Blount in those same playoffs.

All that being said, the thing I'll remember about Najee is the sweet catch he made against the Rats. It's also the thing I'll remember about Kenny. Just an all around great play.

 

For 1st round Rb's I believe in 4 years followed by the option on the 5th year, and then the franchise tag on the 6th year. Then you say, Bye, Bye to your 30 year old RB.


Despite everything that has happened to Najee, Fireworks and now out for the season with an injury, I still believe the Steelers should have signed him to his 5th year option at $6 million.

 

Success rate for a RB with 650 yards is in no way saying Warren is what some thought Najee would be.

You are trying way too hard with this success rate for a gut with less than 200 touches.

lmao..stop it!!

 

Remember that Najee's only in year 5. And he's been on more teams than Edmonds' was at this point in his career.

Although that's only because no one else wanted to pay him more than the vet min, so we could pay him more than everyone else wanted to at the same cap hit. If Edmunds was offered the S equivalent of Najee's contract from someone else, he wouldn't have come back to us after testing UFA.

And Harris will likely be on team 3 next year if he's still in the league. He only signed a 1 year deal. And it was before the Chargers drafted a RB in the 1st.

My guess is that someone will take a chance on him for a vet minimum deal. Might be after the season starts though (after someone else gets hurt). Achilles are 9-12 months or so.

Although maybe the Chargers will throw a vet min deal at him. If the money's all the same, maybe he'd prefer to stay in CA (where he's from).

 

If you want to argue that neither are starting RBs but you'd prefer Najee if contracts were the same (money and structure), I don't think that's unreasonable.

I don't agree, but it's not crazy (if Najee was healthy).

Again, if you remember I wasn't opposed to extending Najee after year 4 at a similar contract we gave Warren. I wasn't sad when he left. But I would have given him a pay as you go type deal. Not a bad bet (although it's one we would have lost).

But that's a lot different than guaranteeing him money 2 years out. Which this team doesn't like to do.

But contracts weren't the same. And Warren is delivering (slightly) better results than Najee did. He just doesn't have the same volume.

 

Nothing negative about going to a new team after missing 90% of the season to injury.

It will depend on what he wants. Stay in Cali or find a new team where he has a chance to compete for the lead role.

Hell, he had an 86% success rate for the Chargers this year!!!

 

What I find comical about success rate for Warren is the record of 7-6.

This is why I think success rate isn’t the slam dunk some think it is.

Gainwell has a success rate of 58% and we are 8-6.

I think the real issue is small sample size due to a lack of plays on offense. Something isn’t adding up. One would think with such high success rates our ground game would be amazing.

 

Well that makes 3 of you

 

Edmunds was a running back

SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESH