Here's the other side of Pickett

After Bradshaw we went like this sort of:

Malone 4 years
Brister 3 years
O'Donnell 5 years (third best Steeler QB IMO)
Stewart 5 years
Maddox 2 years

There were a few assorted others. Now, this is only my opinion but I'd say all listed were better then Pickett will turn out. I am not a Coach so maybe they know he will turn around? I do believe a lot of plays Canada devises is with the knowledge he does not have a top notch QB who can do a lot. Throw long passes on third down. So what if they get INT. probably be worse field position for the other team then if we punted.

I'd say most on here know NFL way better then me but you have to see that Kenny is scared ****less back there. Playing at Pitt against a lot guys who will never sniff the NFL he was OK but the NFL is way to fast for him.

Just an opinion that I hope one day gets shoved back in my face but sadly I'm pretty confident I'm right about him.

 

I would guess that it's to make sure the money is used in retirement, hence the R in IRA, and not just as tax shelter for those who really don't need it for retirement.

 

That's a fair point. Hell, I wouldn't even have a problem with them trading Minkah or even TJ for a top 3 pick in next years QB rich draft. They're not going to win anything with the bums they have in the QB room now, so their talent will just go to waste

 

A. No, but you do sign guys when they are the BEST at their respective positions. Sometimes you have to let good players walk (Mike Wallace, Javon Hargrave, etc.), but you NEVER let dudes like Heyward, Watt, or Minkah walk. Ever.
B. Only because our big signing was Highsmith. We spent money on offense too, and we will spend a ton more on offense in the future when we spend money on our QB and our young playmakers are up for contracts. Warren is looking like he's getting a second contract. We will keep at least one of DJ/Pickens, Freiermuth is due a contract. Again, we don't have to (and wont) sign all these dudes, but we will be spending that money soon.
C. At the time we still had Ben and were planning on taking a run for a couple years when he returned from his injury. We essentially made a move to try to win in his last year or two. Minkah has been a first team All Pro player for 3 out of the 4 years he's spent in Pittsburgh. He was worth it, and he makes our defense a lot better. If we wanted Hurts, we could have had him. We took Claypool instead. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but we turned Claypool into Peezy Jr. via trade, so there's a shot we salvage that one a bit. If we wanted Herbert, we would've had to have packaged our 2021 first to get him. Not sure we were interested in that price tag at the time. The draft is always a different game in hindsight. There were 11 pro bowlers selected in the 2020 draft. We trade our pick for a Pro Bowler/All Pro. Its a win.

All you have to do is wait and see that it IS cyclical. We spent all our money on offense 6-7 years ago because we had Ben, Heath, AB, Pouncey, DeCastro... All our All Pro/Pro Bowl caliber guys were offensive players. We let Bud Dupree walk because of this. Then we spent on defense on Watt and Minkah. We will spend on offense again when we have the guys worth throwing the money at.

 

Possibly trying to get the tax revenue rather than rolling it into an estate after death?

 

yes, I think you are right. He does not show early signs of greatness. Accuracy is way off, and he is regressing, afraid - not seeing the field well at all. lots of blame to go around but a good bit of it is in his mirror.

I think he washes out of the league in 2-4 years.

 

Why not let Minkah or TJ walk? It's not like they'll ever win anything with the the QB's and coaching staff they have now. You wouldn't trade TJ for a guy like Herbert or the first pick in next years draft?

 

Because you don't always get guys like that. Very few teams have elite talents like them on their squad. When you find a guy who is that good, then you do what you can to hang onto them because there is 0 guarantee you'll be able to sign/draft someone on that level.

I can potentially be fine letting them walk in their 30's, but I wouldn't let them walk on their first contract. I'm sure there will be a conversation depending on where the team stands when their next contracts hit... but I don't just get rid of them because simply because we don't think we are winning a SB right now.

Of course I would consider trading Minkah or TJ for a top 5 QB (I would trade Minkah before TJ due to position played)... but trading up to the first pick doesn't guarantee a Top 5 QB. You can just as easily get a bust as you get a solid player. Top end is even less likely. Plus someone drafting in the top 5 is usually looking for more picks if they are trading out, not "win now" guys like Watt or Minkah would be. The teams that think they are a Watt or Minkah away from being a SB winner aren't drafting high enough to make us want to do it.

This team is very close from contending. We are a playoff bubble team already and that is with the worst QB play in the league right now. I'd rather us add then sell off our top pieces... Cousins or Murray would be somewhat expensive (and maybe more expensive than they are worth), but adding either of those guys to this current roster would have us solidly in the conversation as one of the best teams in the AFC. If Cousins or Murray are our QB this year, we are almost certainly 8-2 and currently standing alone atop the AFC.

 

Problem is, they would never be willing to pay for those guys, and I can't say I'd blame them. Also, I doubt if they would be 8-2. Cousins is too old and will be coming off of a serious injury, and Murray is hurt half of the time. They'll probably stick with Pickett or one of those other 2 bums until TJ and Minkah are washed up, unless they get lucky enough to pick a franchise qb at around #20 or so in next 2 years, which is highly unlikely. No team in there right mind would trade a top 5-6 QB, even for TJ and Minkah combined. There are 2-3 QB's in next years draft that have a chance at being great, I say they should try do whatever they need to do to get one of those guys, even if it means letting a guy like Minkah or even TJ walk

 

If we had pre-injury Cousins or Murray quarterbacking this team, we would have won every single game we won with Pickett and would have also won last week vs. Cleveland and would've beat Jacksonville at home. The defense keeps holding the opposition to 20 or less, and we continually struggle to get to that number offensively. We certainly would be sitting at 8-2 right now.

And yeah, no one is trading their top QB for a non-QB. That definitely will never happen. Our only options appear to be Cousins/Murray on the higher end and Mayfield/Minshew on the lower end via FA.

Or the draft. We wouldn't have to let Minkah or TJ walk to get up to get any of those guys you mentioned. We'd have to be willing to part with future #1 picks and probably #2 picks too. We'd essentially sell our soul for one of those guys and keep the team we have in tact in the hopes that we win a SB with that QB while he is on his rookie deal or 5th year option. We'd be filling out the roster with cheaper FA signings and not through the draft in this instance as well.

 

Even Mayfield would be an big upgrade over what we have now, and he wouldn't break the bank like Cousins or Murray would. I was surprised they didn't go after Mayfield when the Browns dumped him, it seemed like a no brainer at the time. I guess they had their eye on Kenny all along, it just hasn't worked out the way they had hoped. Damn, if only Kenny could get his act together and be a solid top 12 QB, it sure would save them a lot of time and bother

 

I'll respectfully disagree.

A. You make decisions on what's best for the franchise.
B. Highsmith was not included in that $42M on D. He was not a free agent.
C. Ben was a 37 year old who had just undergone elbow surgery. Any one who thought we didn't have issues at QB was fooling themselves. Minkah trade was tactically worth it. Strategically very questionable. And yes, we could have had Hurts, but WR was clearly considered a higher priority (which I disagree with), but if we had that first we could filled that higher priority in the first and then had Hurts in the second. That's my point. Trading a first for a safety, no matter how good, when you have clear QB questions just didn't seem very prudent. If you disagree, look at where we are right now.

 

We can respectfully disagree, that is fine.

A. Yep. Signing your All Pro talents is exactly what is best for your franchise.
B. You are absolutely correct, I factored him in when I shouldn't have.
C. We had uncertainty, sure. But I am 100% certain that his situation was very closely monitored and they knew that he was going to be able to play again. As for the woulda, coulda, shoulda... There are a lot of hypothetical liberties taken in the argument. You are assuming we had WR rated at the highest need, not that we had Claypool rated as the highest player when we drafted. According to the FO, need factors into their draft rankings in some capacity, but they never pre-determine which position they want to draft. You also assume we would have had Justin Jefferson rated as our highest rated player where we would have drafted in the 1st if we didn't trade for Minkah. There is also the plausibility that we don't win as many games that year without Minkah, so maybe our draft position would've been better and it opened up a ton of other player possibilities. And you lastly assume that we had Hurts rated super highly, but Tomlin mentioned not scouting him at all. Just too many hypotheticals to make sense of it. Just because we are in a bad situation at QB doesn't mean we shouldn't have made a trade that made this team a lot better.

We scouted CB's, WR's, and RB's. That was always where we were going to go. There's a chance we ended up with Jefferson in the first if we kept that pick. Definitely would've loved that, but we got an All Pro either way. The most likely scenario if we didn't take Claypool in the second would have been Jaylon Johnson (CB) or Cam Akers (RB).