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Turn back the clock. Would you...

Discussion in 'Steelers Talk' started by KMM, Feb 21, 2021.

  1. KMM

    KMM Well-Known Member

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    Go back and not make the Minkah deal?

    I bring this up because a few here are now talking about trading him. He's been a very good player for the Steelers obviously and fantastic for about 6 games or so early on.

    At the time of the trade and during the 2019 season I was against it and said so repeatedly. Not because he's not a good player or that the trade was bad on its face (it wasn't and hasn't been), but only due to the context of the team, because the QB situation was unsettled at the time. Championship teams are built on QBs, not safeties. You can't trade what looked like a high draft pick for a safety when you have no idea of what you have at QB.

    Looking back at the 2019 season and 2019 draft, the Chargers were 5-11 and used the 6th pick on Justin Herbert, who looks like he could be very good. The next QB was Jordan Love at #26 who we have no idea about. If the Steelers don't make the Minkah deal they probably end up 6-10 or 7-9 and may have been able to trade up to get Herbert or trade down to get more picks.

    I realize the draft look is hindsight, but my opposition to the Minkah deal was not. If the goal is to win SB's it just didn't seem to make much sense.
     
    • Very Optimistic Very Optimistic x 1
  2. Chinchilla

    Chinchilla Well-Known Member

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    Maybe this is weak sauce because I do not have the all 22 coaches film but maybe he makes the back end in the secondary more effective. Yes his tackling is suspect but sometimes there is a coverage sack and I wonder if that is even quantifiable to be attributed to Minkah being the Troy P/Ed Reed back there that will not show up on a metric stat.

    I hope Edmunds develops also because I dont know if its possible to keep all
     
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  3. SteelersFanIrl

    SteelersFanIrl Well-Known Member

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    The trade for Minkah was a good deal then and it’s still a good deal. They got a perennial All Pro level player for a first round pick. Considering the hit rate in the draft on getting that kind of quality I’d do it again x 100

    The splash plays that he was making when he first arrived were never going to be sustainable, a good DB will not show up on film all that much because their primary job is to shut down their area of the field.

    The trade I would like back is the one for Devin Bush. He is going to be a good player and I’m glad he is part of the team but they gave up too much there IMO. I know many will disagree with that
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  4. Steel Hog

    Steel Hog Well-Known Member

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    I see what you're saying but I think this depends on one's own philosophy. To me, I'd get a player I KNOW is very good instead of a higher draft pick to get a player I HOPE is as good. We suck at drafting DBs, no shock, and this made sense at that time (HC is a Def guru, yeah right). And who knows who we would have drafted and it may have been other than who you would have. We may have used that pick for a long snapper, who knows.

    Shortly after getting Minkah, our defense was coming together and many here were saying he was the missing link to bring it all together. If no Minkah, we'd be rolling the dice on getting that missing link for maybe years and wasting how many more draft picks on a DB? As it turned out, the next year we are Division Champs starting at 11-0 and ending 12-5. I know it didn't end well, but do you think if we did what you wished we could have done better? No one is right or wrong, its just a philosophical preference each has to make.
     
  5. steelersrule6

    steelersrule6 Well-Known Member

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    No, there's no guarantee they would've been able to trade up to get Herbert.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  6. S.T.D

    S.T.D Well-Known Member

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    Also we are not sure he's great. I like him, but by looking back at other QBs through the years....1 year does not make a Qb great.
     
    • Agree Agree x 4
  7. KMM

    KMM Well-Known Member

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    Oh, I agree with all of that.

    My only point is that when you have no idea if you have a QB or not trading a high pick for a safety, even one as good as Minkah, is dodgy IMO at best. Of course there's no guarantees but the QB spot is the one position you absolutely need to have a reasonable shot at a trophy. Safety? Not so much.
     
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  8. Blast Furnace

    Blast Furnace Staff Member Mod Team

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    Lot of heavy lifting going on in this hypothetical trying to make a great trade look bad.
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  9. PWP

    PWP Well-Known Member

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    We should continue to trade for our DB'S, we have a serious problem drafting them...I have not looked , but I would say Minkah and Haden are the best we have had in 5 to 10 years ..I do not think Edmunds is a good Safety or will be,IMO he is more of a LB who can play some zone coverage..
     
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  10. SteelersFanIrl

    SteelersFanIrl Well-Known Member

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    Nearly every team has a problem drafting DB’s though. It’s a very difficult position to get right and that is why it’s considered a premium position and the top guys make so much money.

    That is not to excuse the Burns or Edmunds selections by Pittsburgh. They were bad missed, but on the other hand they have developed Hilton and Sutton nicely.

    I was reading the draft needs for each team on PFF during the week and virtually all of them have DB / Secondary as a high priority. It’s an area that a lot of teams struggle with.
    Tampa is probably the best team at finding guys outside the first round in recent years.
     
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  11. Rush2seven

    Rush2seven Well-Known Member

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    The loss of Bush and Dupree exposed every position on defense.

    Keep Minkah now and make the trade all over again.
     
    • Agree Agree x 4
  12. steel machine

    steel machine Well-Known Member

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    How about I agree and disagree. Can't click both buttons but I can see your thinking on Bush.
     
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  13. PWP

    PWP Well-Known Member

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    You make some valid points , but I think the Steelers have the wrong mind set ..They look for guys who can do it all when they should look for a specific skill set and be prepared to Coach.. I also believe they still put to much stock in the LB position ...IMO in todays NFL you should start at Safety get real speed so you can play multiple looks in the box..Get man coverage CB'S on the outside ...A LB who has speed and can cover ,to the Teams credit I think they have figured that out we just can't keep that guy healthy..So maybe get more than 1 ?

    The NFL game has almost evolved to the exact game I use to play and Coach .. We had our best Teams and best schemes with Covering the Middle with Speed short and deep and protecting the short flats with LB'S and the deep sidelines with CB play this allowed us another man in the box as a Pass defender , rusher, or run stopper..

    So IMO if you want a D that can stopthe style they are facing now you must be able to play 2 coverages Cover 1 and press Man/zone ...When I look at our Defense I don't think we can play either ...IMO this is why they get exposed later in the season to many cracks and to many eyes looking to find those cracks as a direct result Teams take our pass rush away with PA and quick passing our scheme is almost obsolete..
     
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  14. KMM

    KMM Well-Known Member

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    I didn't say it was a bad trade. It was a very good trade tactically. I'm just saying that I do not think it was a good trade strategically.

    There's a reason why safeties are hardly ever taken in the Top 5 of the draft. It's the nature of the position and the game. Safeties are also the lowest paid defensive position by average salary. TE, RB, and WR are lower paid, but that's it. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/positional/
     
  15. Blast Furnace

    Blast Furnace Staff Member Mod Team

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    Steelers didn’t give up a top 5 draft pick to obtain him, they gave up the 18th pick, plenty of safeties are taken in the first rd, Minkah was drafted at 11.

    For years the Steelers achilles heal has been a bad secondary, largely because they draft the position so poorly, they had an opportunity to fix that and hit it out of the park, the defense was night and day after he started playing here.

    The top safeties get paid an average 14 million a year, they have Minkah at a bargain for 4 million a year. It was a smart trade then and it’s a smart trade now.

    Steelers likely don’t use that first rd pick on a QB anyway and especially doubt they would have moved up to do so.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  16. mytake

    mytake Well-Known Member

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    Safeties (and cornerbacks) will become more valuable as the league evolves into more of a flag football league. If the way officials let holding go on the o-lines this year becomes the norm, QB pressure will become less valuable and pass coverage will become more valuable than ever. We may eventually see the return of the 250 lb. linemen who have quick feet on both sides of the ball.
     
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  17. Jball

    Jball Well-Known Member

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    The trade isn't bad but will it ultimately be worth it is the question.

    Considering the fact that we could be in for a lengthy down time, it probably won't yield anything good. The best years of Watt and Fitz's contracts will probably be spent on a perennial mediocre team, who won't be good enough to be a contender and won't be good enough to get a decent draft pick. They lucked out and sucked just bad enough to get Ben. If Ben would've played in the SEC they wouldn't have got him.
     
  18. Maddog78

    Maddog78 Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, he's a proven All Pro. It's the Bush trade I want back.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  19. SteelerNole

    SteelerNole Well-Known Member

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    Someone has to find something to make a negative thread out of.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  20. bigbenhotness

    bigbenhotness Well-Known Member

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  21. Thor

    Thor

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    Well, they didn't give a top five pick to get Minkah. It was 18, if I recall.

    And you have to be careful with comparing salaries. For example, WRs are showing under safeties because teams by and large carry more WRs than safeties, with those on the lower end of the depth chart earning a much more meager pay grade than their higher-end teammates.

    Also, top end safeties earn on average ~$13M/yr. The Steelers got Minkah for around $4M per.
     
  22. S.T.D

    S.T.D Well-Known Member

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    I like that Avatar.
     
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  23. KMM

    KMM Well-Known Member

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    C'mon, man. My point wasn't that the Steelers used a Top 5 pick for him. My point is that safeties just aren't as highly valued as nearly every other position. Not when measured by draft status or by average pay. You had, and now have, a real issue at QB. Not to mention a few other positions and a valuable asset was spent on a safety. A damn good one, but still. A safety.

    If a safety was all that stood between the Steelers and a Lombardi, hell yeah, do the deal, but that was far from the case when the deal was made and it's far from the case now.
     
    • Disagree Disagree x 1
  24. HeinzMustard

    HeinzMustard Well-Known Member

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    We are doomed.
     
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  25. Steel Hog

    Steel Hog Well-Known Member

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    Good point but that leads me to believe that when they made this move for Minkah, someone knew that what Ben had would not keep him from playing in 2020. Steelers seem to keep things like this close to the vest, as I would. So as everyone is scrambling with predictions, end of the world projections, and gossip galore of what is going on or how to stop the sky from falling, Colbert & Co. may just be sitting back with the actual facts and laughing the azzes off at everyone else. On the other hand, they could have been as clueless as everyone else and did the Minkah deal anyway. Who knows?
     

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