TheSteelersFans Steelers News, Blog, Message Board
During their pre-draft press conference today, coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Kevin Colbert covered a wide range of topics. Most of the focus, as you might expect, was on the draft which begins Thursday night. While most of the answers were par for the course in terms of generality, some did shed light on the thought process behind some of the organization’s choices.
When a reporter asked if the Steelers use the trade value chart when making trades, Colbert revealed that the Steelers do not use the trade value chart. “We don’t use it for our own purposes, we do it to try to see what the other team is thinking. We won’t ever make a trade based on the chart. If we want a player we’ll go and get that player,” said Colbert.
The Steelers GM continued, “We always talk about trading up, when we did it with Troy [Polamalu], it was a 3 and a 6, when we did it with Santonio Holmes], it was a 3 and a 4. People will argue we gave up too much, and I’ll argue- ‘how much is a super bowl worth?’ So, when you want to make that trade, you do it on what you want to do, but you have to know what the other person is thinking when they say, ‘well my chart doesn’t allow this’, so we have to know what they’re thinking, and they’ll throw it on us, but if we want to do it, we’ll do it.”
Colbert said he believes that there will be less trading in the first round. Though, regardless of other teams moving around, the Steelers are going to sit there at 15 and wait for the 14 other teams to do what they’re going to do. “You never trade away until you know what you’re trading away from,” said Colbert. He added that he believes quarterbacks will be the one position that teams will trade around for.
