Welcome Minkah Fitzpatrick

Ummm...? No. He has this season and two more plus the 5th year option, which counts since you're counting it for the draft pick. That is 3 and 7/8s seasons compared to 5. You are losing one season plus 2 games. And the one season you are losing is the rookie season, which is likely to be the least productive for your draft pick anyway.

And you are rather cavalier in the way you dismiss how Fitzpatrick actually plays in your discussion of the merits of the trade. If he wins defensive player of the year for the next three years am I really supposed to think the Steelers would have drafted someone better? How he plays is not insignificant to whether the trade was worth it.

 

But you seem to be operating under the assumption that a top ten pick equals a guaranteed stud QB, or even a better than Rudolph in your doomsday scenario QB. It does not by a long shot. Most of them fail to be anything special. So the risk of the Fitzpatrick trade needs to be weighed against the value but definite uncertainty of a potential top pick.

 

Tomlin trying to move Minkah from FS. Me knocking some sense into him....

 

I'm comparing to the time of the draft. Do you really believe the Steelers are legit SB contenders this year? He'll have 3 years remaining compared to 5 for the draft pick. As for being defensive player of the year...c'mon. The chances of that are miniscule. I could argue that first round pick could be a 7x pro bowler, but that's just pie in the sky stupid.

And Fitzpatrick's level of play is just not as important as to that of qb play. Or even left tackle or pass rusher play for that matter. A safety is not going to make a slightly above average team into a SB team, no matter how good. A franchise qb can.

 

Ok everyone relax a bit if Mason plays just decent and they run the ball more to help him out the offense will come around.

I like the move it builds for the future and says the front office isn't giving up on this season as fast as most on here are.

In the Seattle game the defense looked good in the first half but got gassed in the second.

If Fitz can give us solid saftey play and stop those easy seam routes we start to get off the field more often keeping the front seven fresh.

Mason might be better than expected. Edmunds is not as bad as most think he is. Moncrief is maybe trying too hard to impress, once he catches a few balls and relaxes he will be fine.

Bud is still a first round pick with 6th round moves but there is Ola waiting to get his chance any pressure from the other side frees up Watt.

A new era is here and it starts on Sunday. HERE WE GO STEELERS

 

I used the extreme example to highlight that obviously his play matters to evaluating the trade. And you are acting like keeping the pick means a guaranteed franchise QB when that is far from the case. It is much more likely to result in a total bust of a QB than a franchise.

 

No.

My analysis is not the worst case scenario. It's looking at various scenarios and where the Steelers stand if those play out. I'm not even saying if the deal will ultimately end up being good or bad since that remains to be seen. What I am saying is that when you look at the various possible outcomes and where the team would be with or without the trade, there's a lot of inherent risk and not a lot of concomitant upside. Trading a mid to late first rounder for a safety isn't bad. Trading an early first rounder for a safety is bad, especially if you end up having needs at qb or pass rusher which are far more impactful positions than safety.

The chances of this deal ending up a positive for the franchise don't seem as high as it ending up a negative, imo.

 

We are all clenching to this Rudolph kid lol

 

Goodness. It's about risk vs reward. I honestly don't know why this is so hard to understand. If you think through the possible outcomes this season and the implications for upcoming years, they are basically only marginally improving their chances of winning a SB while risking being screwed.

A safety like Fitzpatrick is important if it's the one thing missing from otherwise a solid team, but that's not what we have here. The Steelers have question marks right now at two of the three most valued positions in football; QB and pass rusher. The other position is LT. There's a reason why the last #1 not at one of those positions was Keyshawn Johnson in 1996. There's only been one safety chosen in the Top 5 since 1993, Sean Taylor in 2004. It's just not that important in the grand scheme of things. Like I said it could end up being a good deal, but it could end up being a bad deal and on balance I just don't like the odds given the potential downside compared to the potential upside.

 

This is kind of how I was trying to analyze it too, with different probabilities.
The one thing that your analysis is lacking is the return of Ben.
I see it this way, with 4 possibilities.......

1) Rudolph plays well and Ben returns heathy sometime next season
.............Good trade because the QB position is solidified for 2 more seasons with Ben and Rudolph has a productive season as starter under his belt while greatly improving a big weakness


2) Rudolph plays well and Ben doesn't return to form or retires altogether.
................Good trade because you've found you next QB and you've improved your defense. You do need to find/develop a suitable back up though. But you've got your starter at QB.


3) Rudolph plays poorly and Ben returns healthy sometime next season
.................Good trade because you still have Ben for 2 more seasons and you've improved your defense giving you a chance in BB's final 2 years. Now it the time to seriously find Bens replacement, while Rudolph backs him up. Pressure, but you've got time.


4) Rudolph plays poorly and Ben doesn't return to form or retires altogether.
............... Bad trade because you've missed the opportunity to land another QB. Your defense is improved, but your offense is now rudderless. Welcome to the 1980s version 2.0


That's 3 positive outcomes and one negative. Based on that, I think it's a good trade.

 

Like the move. The way I see it, our first round pick from next year is on the team this year and contributing. Just like in the draft, we don't know what we're getting, but at least we'll find out early.

 

Who is to say

I think players wanting out & trying to get it is about to hit maximum overdrive.(NFL wise) Not good

 

We'll all be clenching something else come Sunday.

 

Yes, unfortunately, we are going to see much more of this. I'm pretty certain the owners will want it addressed in the next CBA.

 

It makes you wonder what the draft would be like if college players told the truth to GM's and Coaches at the combine. "are you interested in playing in Cleveland?" "Hell no I'm not playing in Cleveland I'd rather stay in school get my degree in sports medicine and be a high school gym teacher in rural Iowa before I play in Cleveland."

 

You left out the part of my post in which I praised your thinking, which I meant as an acknowledgement of my own posts about the team bullshitting the public to sell a certain narrative.

The thing is, that dishonesty from the team is in service of the team's best interests. There is no benefit to soothing the ego of a player who is unlikely to ever suit up again for the Steelers. Even if Davis comes back at some point this season, it could very easily be as a reserve. I can't imagine they will keep him now that they have so much invested in Fitzpatrick and Edmunds.

Trying to make the Brown trade look better was a situation in which Colbert could try to make himself look better. That's not the same thing as what you suggested regarding Davis.

 

I’ve pretty much always been a supporter of Ed. I was just trying to offer up a reason why he may be down on the trade.

 

From earlier you said: "Risk is measured by the chances of something bad happening multiplied by the consequences should that bad thing happen. In this case, even if you believe that the chances of Rudolph failing are small, the risk is still high because the consequences should he fail are huge. Given that, I just don't think that the return here is worth the risk."

That risk is every bit as present with any QB the Steelers could have drafted next year. At best we gave away another chance at a franchise QB, but if we were wrong we are just as screwed as if we never had the pick. Of course, in the later case we also have Fitzpatrick. And if I am to worry about the Steelers being wrong in their evaluation of Rudolph after having seem him up close now for over a season, I'm not sure why I should care so much that these same people don't get to spend a high pick on a QB.

 

I get that there is risk. I just think it is being exaggerated, or at least it is in comparison to the risk in having the pick and using it. There is no guarantee that the pick will be top 5 or even top 10. And even if it is that high there is no guarantee that the Steelers wouldn't have used it on a safety or some other position you didn't name. Finally even had they gotten their high pick and used it on one of your positions, there is no guarantee the player would have turned out. If I'm trusting these guys to make a top pick then I am trusting them to trade it on a young player they know a little more about in the NFL than they would with a pick. It might blow up on them but so could a top pick.

Oh, and best case is Mason turns out to be good, the pick ends up not being a high one, and we have solved our safety position for this year and at least the next three.

 

You don't seem to understand how this works. If you identify a potential risk (no good QB successor to Ben in this case) and deem that risk high enough (we have no idea at present whether Rudulph is that guy) to be worth addressing then you determine how can we mitigate that risk (either reduce the chances of it happening or the consequences if it happens.)

By having the high first round pick you've mitigated the risk of a Rudolph failure by reducing the chances of having no good successor to Ben. It would now take two failures; one by a QB some considered a #1 talent, Rudolph, and a second failure by a high #1 for that risk to materialize. The chances of both failing are multiplicatively less than just Rudolph failing.

In short, right now, the Steelers have no backup plan. It's Rudolph or bust. For what? A safety? A team having or not having a franchise QB is transformative. The difference between an average safety and a great safety is incremental. That seems like a lot on the line for incremental benefit.

 

John Elway pulled this per se. I never liked him since. Snot nosed buck toothed kid.

 

He may be willing to publicly write opinions that he would have held back as a beat writer. That would make sense. His job is different now. But it's not like he was pushed out of the beat. He was recruited and he chose the role he has now.