How is this year's FA crop doing?

[WindyCitySteel]

Every year the Steelers spend March and April papering over every perceived hole on the roster with a middling free agent, declaring themselves "need free" entering the draft, where they basically do the same thing - take one guy at every position where the FA was signed. Obviously, guys taken day 3 are more likely to be career special teams and backups even if they made the team, but fans and media alike celebrate "filling a hole!" with a sixth round guard or DT.

Back to the free agents - Let's check PFF grades to see how this year's cheap wallpaper is holding up as the holidays approach.

CB Levi Wallace - 52.8
LB Myles Jack - 56.4
DT Larry Ogunjobi - 65.6
C Mason Cole - 66.5
G James Daniels - 72.3

Daniels and Cole around career average, slight above average to decent, Larry O the same. D starters below the line.

Zero star, impact, transformational players because We're The Pittsburgh Steelers And This Is How We Do Things.

Let's hope Kahn/Weidl usher in a new era of free agency, one that values quality over quantity, because the Steelers have been spinning their tires for years with this approach.

[whatever]

I thought I read where once we got rid of Ben his huge contract, the Steelers would have a bunch of money to get stud FAs.

[WindyCitySteel]

I thought I read where once we got rid of Ben his huge contract, the Steelers would have a bunch of money to get stud FAs.

They do have the money, but they prefer quantity over quality. Imagine if they had just promoted Loudermilk, Robinson, Pierre, Hassenauer, and used all their replacements' money to sign one impact guy. Would they be worse than 3-7?

[NJ-STEELER]

I thought I read where once we got rid of Ben his huge contract, the Steelers would have a bunch of money to get stud FAs.

dint forget the offense will look much better cause he’s too immobile

[Steel Maniac]

dint forget the offense will look much better cause he’s too immobile

Oh yeah..they banged hard on Ben when he was on the way out. Gave all those excuses.

[SteelerOfDeVille]

Every year the Steelers spend March and April papering over every perceived hole on the roster with a middling free agent, declaring themselves "need free" entering the draft, where they basically do the same thing - take one guy at every position where the FA was signed. Obviously, guys taken day 3 are more likely to be career special teams and backups even if they made the team, but fans and media alike celebrate "filling a hole!" with a sixth round guard or DT.

Back to the free agents - Let's check PFF grades to see how this year's cheap wallpaper is holding up as the holidays approach.

CB Levi Wallace - 52.8
LB Myles Jack - 56.4
DT Larry Ogunjobi - 65.6
C Mason Cole - 66.5
G James Daniels - 72.3

Daniels and Cole around career average, slight above average to decent, Larry O the same. D starters below the line.

Zero star, impact, transformational players because We're The Pittsburgh Steelers And This Is How We Do Things.

Let's hope Kahn/Weidl usher in a new era of free agency, one that values quality over quantity, because the Steelers have been spinning their tires for years with this approach.

From Jack and Larry O, I expected better. The others are right about where I figured they would be.

This just means that the offseason will be as we've expected... O-line, d-line, LB, DB will all be possibilities in the first 2-3 rounds.

[whatever]

dint forget the offense will look much better cause he’s too immobile

Yup, plus Ben was changing all the play calls

[Terrapin]

We haven't signed an impact FA since who, James Farrior? Although I guess Joe Haden was pretty good. Can't wait to see what kind of Jaguar scrub we'll target next season.

I have no idea why they value quantity over quality. 1 or 2 impact FA's, and 1 or 2 impact rookies would turn things around in a hurry

[steeler_fan_in_t.o.]

Every year the Steelers spend March and April papering over every perceived hole on the roster with a middling free agent, declaring themselves "need free" entering the draft, where they basically do the same thing - take one guy at every position where the FA was signed. Obviously, guys taken day 3 are more likely to be career special teams and backups even if they made the team, but fans and media alike celebrate "filling a hole!" with a sixth round guard or DT.

Back to the free agents - Let's check PFF grades to see how this year's cheap wallpaper is holding up as the holidays approach.

CB Levi Wallace - 52.8
LB Myles Jack - 56.4
DT Larry Ogunjobi - 65.6
C Mason Cole - 66.5
G James Daniels - 72.3

Daniels and Cole around career average, slight above average to decent, Larry O the same. D starters below the line.

Zero star, impact, transformational players because We're The Pittsburgh Steelers And This Is How We Do Things.

Let's hope Kahn/Weidl usher in a new era of free agency, one that values quality over quantity, because the Steelers have been spinning their tires for years with this approach.

Even though he did not come from outside, I would include Akhiello Witherspoon. 2 years, $8M. I don't know his PFF but he has missed plenty of time and not looked good when he has played. His contract is set up so that if he plays one year he will receive exactly $4M and if cut the savings is $4M. I would be happy with releasing him and using that money to re-sign Sutton. Then bring in a high pick or FA at CB.

[whisper]

dint forget the offense will look much better cause he’s too immobile

Even the old man (Rooney) parroted the blame for an ineffective offense under Canada: we need a mobile QB. Everything was Ben's fault for returning when they really didn't expect/want him to. And the yinzers kept repeating this excuse through out the offseason, as if there was even a modicum of it being true.

Then reality hit: we got 2 pretty mobile QBs, and the offense just got worse.

As far as the FAs go, we once again got what we paid for: ham and eggers for the most part, although I think Jack has played better than most do. Levi hasn't played much due to injury and Larry O has been pretty solid.

[flippy]

Every year the Steelers spend March and April papering over every perceived hole on the roster with a middling free agent, declaring themselves "need free" entering the draft, where they basically do the same thing - take one guy at every position where the FA was signed. Obviously, guys taken day 3 are more likely to be career special teams and backups even if they made the team, but fans and media alike celebrate "filling a hole!" with a sixth round guard or DT.

Back to the free agents - Let's check PFF grades to see how this year's cheap wallpaper is holding up as the holidays approach.

CB Levi Wallace - 52.8
LB Myles Jack - 56.4
DT Larry Ogunjobi - 65.6
C Mason Cole - 66.5
G James Daniels - 72.3

Daniels and Cole around career average, slight above average to decent, Larry O the same. D starters below the line.

Zero star, impact, transformational players because We're The Pittsburgh Steelers And This Is How We Do Things.

Let's hope Kahn/Weidl usher in a new era of free agency, one that values quality over quantity, because the Steelers have been spinning their tires for years with this approach.

Im ok with these guys and can live with the fact that some guys work out and some don’t in FA and the draft.

But I do have more concerns about general roster/player management over the last several years.

I would have tried to keep Hilton, Hargrave, Juju, and Conner for example. All young guys that are quality players that had reasonably priced contracts.

I would have liked to have kept Bud too but understand he got paid and that contract would have likely been too much.

Maybe dealing Claypool is a positive sign of things to come. But I wasn’t a fan of signing DJ for a big contract and thought that money could have been better used.

I think I’d rather have Pickens and Juju right now. If we kept Conner and found another back to share the load when he got injured from time to time, we wouldn’t have had to go with Najee and could have invested that pick to improve the OL for example.

I still feel a little stunned letting Hilton and Hargrave go. I thought both of those guys were key cogs that helped make our D work. Hargrave was a load up front and Hilton is a unique playmaker and if we had these 2 quality guys still, we could have avoided being forced into making a lot of other moves and picks that didn’t pan out as well as those guys would have imho.

The other big thing that hurt was the Tuitt situation and no one is really to blame there. It’s just a crappy situation where we lost a guy who arguably was one of our most dominant defenders.