[QUOTE=The Man of Steel;766942]I can see it happening.
Drafting Diontae Johnson instead of Winovich will go down in Steelers history as a bigger blunder than when they drafted Tee Martin instead of Tom Brady or maybe even as bad as picking Senor Sack over Dan Marino.[/QUOTE]
I like it that you were not afraid to say how you feel; if that’s what you think then it’s all good. You definitely dont have to stay with the common narrative if you choose not to.
[QUOTE=The Man of Steel;766942]I can see it happening.
Drafting Diontae Johnson instead of Winovich will go down in Steelers history as a bigger blunder than when they drafted Tee Martin instead of Tom Brady or maybe even as bad as picking Senor Sack over Dan Marino.[/QUOTE]
I'm all for drafting the local kid, but put me down for thinking Ola and Sutton are better OLBs than Chase. I think most are bigger on Ola, but I'm bigger on Sutton. He's freakishly quick, deceptively strong and I think he's a football player that will be one of the few that transcends his clear size limitations.
I like things about both, and think they're very different and would love to see the Steelers rotate those 2 and get a relentless pass rush from that side of the field.
Sutton is intriguing. That's one of the main experiments of the coming training camp
[B]Bud Dupree posts impressive offseason workout video; Steelers fans hope the work pays off[/B]
Bud Dupree is putting in work this offseason, but will it make a difference in his game?
By Jeff.Hartman@BnGBlitz Jun 30, 2019
The Pittsburgh Steelers made an investment in outside linebacker Bud Dupree prior to the 2019 regular season. That investment was a hefty one too as they picked up the former Kentucky linebacker’s 5th year option, costing the organization roughly $9 million dollars for his services this season.
A large contingent of fans were up in arms when the team decided to give Dupree the money, based on the fact he has yet to really live up to the expectations of a first round draft pick.
As an outside linebacker, you are gauged by one thing, and one thing only — sacks. This might not be fair considering how much the Steelers have their outside linebackers drop into coverage, but when fans point to an outside linebacker’s stats, they always reference sacks first.
In Dupree’s first four years, he has never totaled more than 6 sacks in a season (2017), and has tallied just 20 sacks throughout the same time span. For a comparison, T.J. Watt, who is entering year three, already has already totaled in two years what took Dupree four.
Not a good look for Dupree.
With his freakish size and speed there is no reason why he shouldn’t be nearing double-digit sacks every season, and with Watt now a legitimate threat on the other side he will be seeing even more one-on-one coverage than he did before.
This offseason Dupree has been putting in work, and he posted a new workout video, similar to one last year, showing him working on his craft. Take a look at the video which was posted on his verified Twitter account:
This isn’t the first time Dupree has posted an offseason workout video. Last year he showed himself doing work with Von Miller in the offseason, and as fans clamored to see if it would make a difference during the season, his 5.5 sacks in 2018 left them feeling deflated.
Will this year be different? Will Dupree’s work pay dividends in a contract year? Only time will tell, but hopefully Dupree doesn’t think the video posted will have an impact on the fan base’s impression of him as a player.
[video]https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/2019/6/30/20121851/bud-dupree-posts-impressive-offseason-workout-video-steelers-fans-hope-the-work-pays-off-sacks-nfl[/video]
[QUOTE=hawaiiansteel;767446][B]Bud Dupree posts impressive offseason workout video; Steelers fans hope the work pays off[/B]
Bud Dupree is putting in work this offseason, but will it make a difference in his game?
By Jeff.Hartman@BnGBlitz Jun 30, 2019
The Pittsburgh Steelers made an investment in outside linebacker Bud Dupree prior to the 2019 regular season. That investment was a hefty one too as they picked up the former Kentucky linebacker’s 5th year option, costing the organization roughly $9 million dollars for his services this season.
A large contingent of fans were up in arms when the team decided to give Dupree the money, based on the fact he has yet to really live up to the expectations of a first round draft pick.
As an outside linebacker, you are gauged by one thing, and one thing only — sacks. This might not be fair considering how much the Steelers have their outside linebackers drop into coverage, but when fans point to an outside linebacker’s stats, they always reference sacks first.
In Dupree’s first four years, he has never totaled more than 6 sacks in a season (2017), and has tallied just 20 sacks throughout the same time span. For a comparison, T.J. Watt, who is entering year three, already has already totaled in two years what took Dupree four.
Not a good look for Dupree.
With his freakish size and speed there is no reason why he shouldn’t be nearing double-digit sacks every season, and with Watt now a legitimate threat on the other side he will be seeing even more one-on-one coverage than he did before.
This offseason Dupree has been putting in work, and he posted a new workout video, similar to one last year, showing him working on his craft. Take a look at the video which was posted on his verified Twitter account:
This isn’t the first time Dupree has posted an offseason workout video. Last year he showed himself doing work with Von Miller in the offseason, and as fans clamored to see if it would make a difference during the season, his 5.5 sacks in 2018 left them feeling deflated.
Will this year be different? Will Dupree’s work pay dividends in a contract year? Only time will tell, but hopefully Dupree doesn’t think the video posted will have an impact on the fan base’s impression of him as a player.
[video]https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/2019/6/30/20121851/bud-dupree-posts-impressive-offseason-workout-video-steelers-fans-hope-the-work-pays-off-sacks-nfl[/video][/QUOTE]
With our luck at the OLB position, Dupree will have 12-15 sacks and price himself out of our market.
[QUOTE=Oviedo;767447]With our luck at the OLB position, Dupree will have 12-15 sacks and price himself out of our market.[/QUOTE]
I was think EXACTLY the same thing. I weirdly think 9 or 10 would be preferable.
$9M is too much for Dupree, but as the ceiling for edge rushers rose to around $23M (Mack) and $18M as a more common high end number this off-season, it is not as bad as it was when the top guys were around $12M.
Still too much for what he has done, but more palatable than it would have been prior to this year, considering there weren't many options.
[B]Keith Butler On Dupree: ‘The Key For Us Is How Bud Does This Year’[/B]
By Matthew Marczi
Posted on July 26, 2019
It didn’t take long at all for T.J. Watt to establish himself as the top outside linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He immediately started as a rookie and recorded two sacks (and an interception) in his first game. He would go on to record seven sacks as a rookie, the most at the position, and then nearly double that last season with 13. That led the team and helped him get to the Pro Bowl.
With Watt currently nursing a tight hamstring that he experienced after completing Thursday’s conditioning test, however, the focus instead is on Bud Dupree, the other former first-round pick at the position. Heading into his fifth season, all sides know it’s a critical year for the former Wildcat. He posted five and a half sacks last season after six the year before.
Defensive coordinator Keith Butler, who is now (and once again) the position coach for the outside linebacker group, talked about Dupree after practice Friday and his position relative to the defense as a whole. “I think the key for us is how Bud does this year”, Mike Prisuta quoted him as saying, via the team’s website.
“I think he knows the defense a little bit better than he has the last four years. You get that experience and stuff like that, and then doing the little things. Once he starts doing the little things he’s going to be better”.
This is a comment that’s not going to sit well with his detractors, which appears to be the majority of Steelers fans. Even if we assume it to be true that Dupree has a better understanding of the overall defense this year, the response is going to be, why didn’t he know it earlier? Why wasn’t he doing the little things that now expect to see from him after four years in the league?
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who thinks what about him or what he’s done in the past. It’s all about what he does this year and from this point forward. Playing under his fifth-year option, he knows that his future—where he will play, and for how much—depends on what he is able to do on the field in 2019, and he should have every motivation to blow everything he has previously done out of the water.
The team has not made significant investments at the outside linebacker position since using a first-round pick there in 2017. The most notable addition in 2018 was undrafted free agent Olasunkanmi Adeniyi, who ran with the second-team defense behind Dupree today.
They also used a sixth-round pick this year on the undersized Sutton Smith, who, as should go without saying, is more of a speed rusher than one of power. Even with Watt out, he was on the third line today, with Anthony Chickillo replacing Watt on the first team and J.T. Jones running second-team with Adeniyi.
[video]https://steelersdepot.com/2019/07/keith-butler-on-dupree-the-key-for-us-is-how-bud-does-this-year/[/video]
[B]Can Bud Dupree 'accept the challenge'? The Steelers hope so Peter Diana/Post-Gazette[/B]
GERRY DULAC
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
JUL 30, 2019
Sparky Anderson, the Hall of Fame baseball manager, once famously exclaimed, “Just give me 25 guys on the last year of their contract, I’ll win a pennant every year.”
His point was simple: Players boost their effort and performance in the final year of a contract to increase their value and bargaining power, whether with their current team or a new one.
And so it is with Bud Dupree, the Steelers outside linebacker who is in the final year of the rookie contract he signed after being a No. 1 draft choice in 2015.
The Steelers are hoping that alone will motivate him to perform the way they expected when they made him the 22nd overall selection in the draft. They are especially hoping that will be the case after they agreed to exercise a fifth-year option that will pay Dupree, 26, a whopping $9,232,000 in 2019. Only six other NFL outside linebackers will make more this season, according to overthecap.com.
So far, there has been no immediate proof that will happen. Only hope that it might.
“He’s in a contract year,” said defensive coordinator Keith Butler, a former outside linebacker who played 10 years in the NFL. “He knows it. We told him, Mike [Tomlin] told him, I told him, everyone told him. He’s willing to accept the challenge.”
The Steelers are willing to accept whatever motivation Dupree wants to use in 2019, whether it’s to prove he deserves another contract with them or go seek a more lucrative one in free agency. They just want to see more than what they’ve witnessed in his first four years in the league.
Dupree has 20 sacks in 59 games with the Steelers, or just seven more than his outside partner, T.J. Watt, had last season. He is hoping to use the motivation of a contract year to change that.
“I just want to go out and play to the best of my ability and have my best year yet,” said Dupree, who noted he would rather have it this way than having already signed a long-term extension.
“I’m going to go out and do my thing. I’m going to help the team, not be selfish, even though it is a contract year. I can’t be selfish, so I got to make sure I’m doing stuff beneficial to the unit as a whole and keep my hair on fire and keep playing to the best of my ability, for the team, not just myself.”
The Steelers were hoping Dupree could build off his injury-limited 2016 season when he missed the first nine games on injured reserve but came back to post 4½ sacks in the final four games and a half-sack in the first playoff game. They were also hoping a move from the left side of the defense to the right in 2018 would be beneficial because it would allow Dupree to come from the quarterback’s blind side.
But because Dupree predominantly takes a wide rush, left tackles began to sit back on his speed and let the 6-foot-4, 260-pound linebacker basically run himself out of the play. Dupree finished with 5½ sacks last season but had just one in the final seven games.
“I think he’s got to be more aware in terms of situational football and what people are trying to do to him, reading what offensive tackles are doing,” Butler said. “I think sometimes he knows, but he remembers it a half-second too late. The more he plays, that will turn to reacting exactly the way he’s supposed to react and how to react.”
Dupree said he knows he has to counter his outside rush with more inside and power moves. But he said the scheme of the Steelers defense sometimes prevents him from taking an inside rush.
“My biggest thing is making the plays I have, finishing the plays,” Dupree said. “They see the progression I’m making. It’s on me now to make sure I finish that and make those big plays I need to make.”
Dupree said he expects to get double-digit sacks in 2019.
“I’m going to have a big year,” he said. “This is the year we really need it, for the unit and also for myself.”
Sparky Anderson was probably right.
[video]https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/steelers/2019/07/30/bud-dupree-contract-steelers-keith-butler/stories/201907300072[/video]
[B]T.J. Watt On Bud Dupree: ‘I Think This Year Will Be The Year For Him’[/B]
By Matthew Marczi
Posted on August 8, 2019
Based at least upon reader responses, there is nothing that pains a Pittsburgh Steelers fan more than to read anything positive about fifth-year outside linebacker Bud Dupree, who must surely be among the worst human beings to ever exist.
Worse still is any allusion to the possibility that he could still be growing and developing as a player, in spite of the fact that he already has four years of NFL experience under his belt. The former first-round pick has produced an average of five sacks per season during his first four years. He did record an interception returned for a touchdown last season.
Earlier this week, as he was being activated from the Active/Physically Unable to Perform List, fellow outside linebacker T.J. Watt spoke to the media for the first time in training camp, and he was asked about Dupree and the criticism he has gotten, especially relative to his own success over the first two years of his career.
‘If you look closely, he’s there on a lot of plays. He’s just got to be able to finish the sacks”, Watt offered via The Fan of his veteran teammate, “and I think that he’s made that an emphasis this year. Bud’s got a lot of great rushes. He’s really good in the run defense, too. I think he’s right there, he’s so close, and I think this year will be the year for him”.
The intimation that ‘this will be the year’ for Dupree has been made early and often this offseason from both players and coaches. He is playing under his fifth-year option, essentially a contract year, and while there is no expectation that he is in discussions for an extension—he has said he prefers to play out the option—it is nonetheless essentially a ‘contract’ year as he prepares to hit unrestricted free agency in the spring.
Regardless of whether or not they would be able to afford to pay him in 2020, the Steelers would love nothing more than to see a dominant season from him this season, as it would be of great aid to their cause, which is to win another Super Bowl.
In the meantime, though, they are hoping to develop some young talent at the position, in a group led by second-year Olasunkanmi Adeniyi. The 2018 college free agent out of Toledo recorded three sacks, including two strip sacks, during the preseason a year ago, but spent most of his rookie season on the Reserve/Injured List.
He has picked up in the offseason right where he left off, but he is also joined by Tuzar Skipper and Sutton Smith, as well as J.T. Jones, in making some plays off the edge. Skipper in particular, who was a rookie minicamp invitee and a former Toledo teammate of Adeniyi’s.
[video]https://steelersdepot.com/2019/08/t-j-watt-on-bud-dupree-i-think-this-year-will-be-the-year-for-him/[/video]