I'm in the Pittsburgh Airport, waiting for the flight we were bumped to, and I am sure it was Matt Spaeth that walked by me. The dude is so very tall, and I cannot fathom why he has not been a red zone TD machine. He also looked lean, much more than the bulk he seemed to carry during his previous time with the Steelers.
I always thought of Ward as more of a TE than a WR. He'd seal the edge and block linemen on running plays. He'd often be blocking LBs. He ran a lot of his routes in the short middle zone of the field.
I think he was the one holding the Steelers back from using a TE because he caught all the balls that would typically go to a pass catching TE. And then as soon as he was gone, Heath finally got his chance to shine. If Ward wasn't around, Heath would have probably got all those balls early on in his career.
Here are the TE's who were drafted after Landry Jones:
4.133 ATL Levine Toilolo, Stanford
5.158 SEA Luke Willson, Rice
6.172 OAK Nick Kasa, Colorado
6.184 OAK Mychal Rivera, Tennessee
6.201 HOU Ryan Griffin, Connecticut
7.211 DET Michael Williams, Alabama
7.219 ARZ D.C. Jefferson, Rutgers
7.222 BUF Chris Gragg, Arkansas
7.254 IND Justice Cunningham, South Carolina
Any of those guys float your boat? The next two TE's off the board, picked in the 4th and 5th round, were actually backups on their college teams (Stanford TE Zach Ertz and Rice TE Vance McDonald were both picked in the 2nd round by the Eagles and Niners, respectively).
Steeler teams featuring stat-driven, me-first, fantasy-football-darling diva types such as Antonio Brown & Le'Veon Bell won no championships.
Super Bowl winning Steeler teams were built around a dynamic, in-your-face defense plus blue-collar, hard-hitting, no-nonsense football players on offense such as Hines Ward & Jerome Bettis.
We don't want Juju & Conner to replace what we lost in Brown & Bell.
We are counting on Juju & Conner to return us to the glory we once had with Hines & The Bus.
Heath is listed as 1 inch taller and 10 lbs. heavier than Paulson (6'5" 256 vs. 6'4" 246). Is 1 inch and 10 lbs. the difference between a TE and an H-back? With a full year under his belt in a professional weight room, Paulson has probably even closed a bit of that 10 lbs. gap already. Look at the two of them standing next to each other...does it look like much of a major difference to you?
Steeler teams featuring stat-driven, me-first, fantasy-football-darling diva types such as Antonio Brown & Le'Veon Bell won no championships.
Super Bowl winning Steeler teams were built around a dynamic, in-your-face defense plus blue-collar, hard-hitting, no-nonsense football players on offense such as Hines Ward & Jerome Bettis.
We don't want Juju & Conner to replace what we lost in Brown & Bell.
We are counting on Juju & Conner to return us to the glory we once had with Hines & The Bus.
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