Declining Najees 5th looks even better

No it doesn't. You're still clinging to a single touch more by a guy who played nearly half the snaps as the other. You can (and will) spin it however you want, but it's conjecture.

End of day, you could be right. I have no problem admitting that. It's just not built off of a particularly strong argument. At best I saw the a backfield of Hampton and Harris as 1A/1B. Harris needed to get up to speed with the system, but Hampton needed to get up to speed with pro ball. Making concessions for one and not other is a bit disingenuous.

 

FWIW, I wouldn't call either of them busts. I would think that busts are guys who teams give up on before their 1st contract ends (e.g. Pickett).

Since the rule changes around 5th year options (higher price, guaranteed money) fewer guys get options. Because it only makes sense to sign those options if they player is clearly above average (e.g. probowl player)...at least that seems to be how the Steelers are approaching it (sorry Broderick...doesn't look good for your option either).

18/32 in Najee's year. 21 in Edmunds' year. And the rate of acceptance generally drops as you get later in the 1st round.

It was disappointing that Edmunds and Harris didn't earn the option. But my guess is that they gave us about what you'd expect from guys that get picked late in the first. Edmunds was 28th OA. Najee was 24th (in a draft that wasn't very good IIRC).

 

See the post above about the butterfly effect. I do love your use of hindsight here. You made it very clear in previous discussions that you did not think Gainwell as good as Harris. In fact, you were unhappy when you thought I said you were posting otherwise.

Gainwell is no rookie and he wasn't just a backup last year because the Eagles got Barkley. They had him for four seasons and never gave him more than 84 carries. Maybe the Steelers got really lucky and he will take a big step forward from what he had been in the past. It was certainly fun to watch yesterday, but I didn't see anybody here predicting it because you all knew he hadn't show that kind of ability in the past. His previous career high rushing total for one game was 78 yards and that was the final game of his rookie season.

All that said, for one day, it was fun to watch. He showed great quickness and ran aggressively. He's not the guy you want trying to power for a yard at the end of the game, but in every other way, he came through big time.

 

Harris didn't just have to get up to speed with the system. He missed much of the time to do that before the season due to his eye injury.

I'm not clinging to a single touch. What you are missing and refusing to acknowledge is that the Chargers turned to Harris with the game on the line. They trusted him more than Hampton, who had fumbled in the game. A power back who protects the ball is a great asset in those situations.

 

Nah, I'm not refusing anything. It's way too small a sample to me to be significant. Backs, especially rookies, are often put in the dog house for the remainder of the game if they fumble. There's no connection that says 'lead back' out of that to me, especially when the other back had nearly twice the snap %.

 

I agree that neither are "busts", but both were fairly disappointing. Harris is very much in Mendenhall land for me. Edmunds as well. Both are players that will have garnered a large snap and opportunity share in Pittsburgh and will both have done next to nothing outside Pittsburgh when its all said and done.

 

Declining Najees 5th looks even better



Declining Najee

 

I agree that both were disappointing, but I also would bet that if you look at value delivered by guys selected where they were picked they are probably right around expected value.

Solid, but not spectacular starters.

We'd all love more Watt's from those spots, but that's note realistic.

 

Dr. Blast is now doling out medical expertise. Unless you have a medical degree you didn't tell us about, that ticking time bomb comment is conjecture at best. Seriously, read the post above. He nailed it. And even if you were right, congratulations on your hindsight. You were the one who wanted to dismiss wear and tear as a reason they might have let him go right up until the moment his Achilles ruptured.

The Warren/Gainwell duo had not been performing well at all until this past game. The running game had been quite lousy until they got a shot at the Minnesota defense that gave up 218 yards on the ground to the Falcons two weeks earlier. I hope Sunday was a sign of things to come, but Gainwell's history doesn't support that notion.

 

Declining Najees 5th looks even better

 

Oh yeah, its not like you're going to get studs in the early to mid twenties every year. Hindsight is 20/20, but we could've gotten quality OL the year that we took Najee and Lamar Jackson instead of Terrell Edmunds. Heck, we could've taken Jesse Bates at the same position as Edmunds who was a better player as well.

Neither Edmunds nor Najee were BAD players. They weren't Artie Burns or Jarvis Jones for sure.... It just sucks that neither ever became higher end players.

 

All of the first round quality OL were gone the year Najee was drafted, and they weren't going to draft Creed in the first round either.

 

Dickerson would have been a viable option, though it looks like the bigger mistake was taking Freiermuth over Humphrey in the second round.

 

Not entirely true. Landon Dickerson and Liam Eichenberg were available. Dickerson is a very quality player and Eichenberg is quite good, though not a pro bowl caliber player like Dickerson. We scouted Dickerson too. Had him in for a visit. Its not like we weren't considering him.

 

No, he wouldn't he had like 2-3 serious knee injuries in college.

 

Darrisaw was the last first round quality OL to come off of the board, Eichenberg and Dickerson weren't first round guys.

 

Were there good OTs left when we picked Najee?

I am generally not a huge fan of RB in the 1st because I don't the optioning RBs is a good idea (also why centers are not good 1st round picks...for them it's even worse actually).

But I remember thinking I could live with the Najee pick because the OL that I wanted were already off the board.

There were no OL taken in after Najee in the 1st.

Teven Jenkins was sleeted 7th in the 2nd.
Liam Eichenberg 10th in the 2nd
Jackson Carman 14th
Samuel Cosmi 19th
Dillon Raduns 21

Then we picked PF in the 2nd...when we should have picked Humphrey. It's the only Steelers draft pick I really hated when it was made in real time. Not because PF isn't good...he's been OK. Because Humphrey was such an obvious intersection of value and need for us.

 

The Vikings picked Darrisaw one pick before the Steelers, the rest of those guys would've been a reach in the first round.

 

It would have been a good idea to trade up for the right player, but the Steelers have only done that once in the last 16 years under Colbert.

 

I had an appointment with the surgeon who operated on my foot today. He also happens to be a big football fan, so he had seen the video of Harris's injury. I asked him about your theory. He responded that no, it was not a ticking time bomb. He explained that an elite athlete making an forceful move out of a stance can create a rupture even in an Achilles tendon that wasn't previously damaged or weakened. Sorry, Dr. Blast. The science does not support your claim on this one.