Please note: I'm the guy that wants people fired during the game. "how did he miss that tackle, bench him!!!" are words that come out of my mouth often during a game. More swearing if there is booze involved so please take this with a grain of salt.
It's time we recognize that we've come to the bitter end of a great era of Steeler football that really started in 2003-2004. We've been to the Superbowl three times, winning two, put together 7 winning seasons and have had a lot of fun poking fun at the teams in our division that couldn't quite get over the hump. Those days are gone, age, inflated contracts and injuries have decimated us the last few years. Herculean efforts by Big Ben are no longer able to will us to victory, oftentimes they don't even make us competitive. It's time to change things up.
1.) Do you dangle Ben? He's going to be a $22M+ a year guy in C3. Do you do it and hope that you have some young guns on the team that pull it all together or do you juuuuust see if someone will give you their next two 1st round picks for him? He's only 32, I say we do everything in our power to re-sign him.
2.) I think it's the end of an era for Troy P. He's been the proverbial "Steeler guy" through his career and when he's good, holy cow is he still good but I fear his cap hit next year and am afriad we cannot pay him his $14M. I think as a fan, I'd want to ask Troy to take a substantial pay cut and let him finish as a Steeler, my guess is that he won't do it and will be gone.
3.) After watching his play this year, is there any way to get out of Woodley's contract? He just seems to have decided that he's rich and that he's not going to try anymore. I don't think we can get out of his cap hit and when we re-signed him, I was thrilled that we re-signed him but he hasn't seemed to play well since. There's a piece of me that wants to offer Worilds a three year, Steeler friendly deal and play him and Jones next year and if no one will give us 5th round pick for Woodley we just release him. I don't think we save on the cap by doing so next year but wow he's been bad.
4.) I've been a fan of Ike Taylor every since we drafted him in the 4th round and we figured he was "raw". I hoped beyond hope that DeMarcus Van Dyke would prove to be the same guy, boy was I wrong. Ike may be in the same fashion that Troy is next year. Too old to be a 10M+ cap hit. He's been a fantastic Steeler, if the dude could catch there'd be no such thing as Reevis Island, it'd be "Ike's playhouse" or something. But we are in re-building mode and a re-building team is not a place for a 34 year old $10M corner. Time to offer him a substantial pay cut or let him walk away and get younger.
5.) Ziggy - let that guy walk. Maybe a 4-3 team will pick him up to be a backup.
6.) Keisel - Ask him to sign a one year deal? Do we have a choice?
7.) Sanders - hindsight always being awesome, we should have take NE up on the draft pick. Had we known we'd be 2-6 after the 9th week, we could have just let the young guys taken their lumps.
There's so much more, but I need to actually start work.
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