http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap200...heet-with-jags
Alex Mack's future will be decided over the next week. No matter what happens, he's going to be the highest paid center in football.
NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reports that Mack will sign a five-year, $42 million offer sheet with the Jacksonville Jaguars on Friday.
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Oh boy....
Last edited by Psycho Ward 86; 04-10-2014 at 05:30 PM.
Originally Posted by XxKnightxX
Extend Pouncey now while he has no real leverage. Then hope he outperforms the deal and doesn't holdout?
Array title="ALLD has a reputation beyond repute">
If Pouncey ever played a full season I would be concerned.
All Defense!
im still worried because he started his career as a 3x all pro
I am still in favor of trying to deal him on draft day ...sign Valesco and draft a guy like Stork in the 4th round
I'm in favor of this also. No way should the Steelers pay him the nearly $10 million per year it will take to re-sign him.
Not like we have two top tier Tackles. Whats the problem
"It comes with the Territory" - Floyd 'Money' Mayweather
While I do not relish the idea of having to make Pouncey one of the highest paid players on the team; I do not like the idea of going with Velasco and some dudes. Velasco was on the street prior to signing with the Steelers. While he played decent, several breakdowns that use a good amount of detail rated Velasco as average at best. When he is healthy, Pouncey is well above average.
I also seem to remember whole seasons and one SB loss in particular being marred by playing "just a guy" at center. Velasco is just a guy.
Any guarantee when or if Valesco can play next year. Pretty bad injury he sustained.
Array title="pepsyman1 has much to be proud of">
Velasco graded out higher than Pouncey did the previous season, then came in here and stepped into the starting line up on no notice like he'd been playing here for years. If we have him (assuming he's healthy) and Cody Wallace, I'd have no problem seeing Pouncey go. Pouncey is quicker but Velasco is stronger and meaner
if we think wallace can not only hold it down, but play fairly well (I am NOT going back to the sean mahan/jeff hartwig years), then im all for trading pouncey if we can get something along the lines of a 2nd round pick or a 3rd round + 4th round pick for him. Yes, he's coming off an ACl tear, but he has been a 1st team all-pro for 3 out of the 4 years he's been in the league. That is REALLY worth something. how many centers in NFL history can say theyve achieved that? Can you imagine the gold mine of a draft we could have if we had 1 or 2 more early round draft picks from trading pouncey, and maybe 1 more from trading down? Wow. And this is the perfect draft to do that too.
And guess who might just need a center with a very high draft pick???
For the record, I am not for trading Pouncey. I get the arguments you all make, but this line is MUCH better with Pouncey at the helm. Maybe we can get a great year out of him before we lose him. Or maybe we get Worilds deal done then use the tag on Pouncey next season?
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Legursky was actually a bright spot during that Super Bowl. Not sure there would've been much of a difference having Pouncey in there over him. He actually played extremely well.
Enthroned Into The Good Old Boys Club - 2024
Array title="GBMelBlount has a reputation beyond repute">
This.
"With love, with patience, and with Faith
....She'll make her way" ~ Natalie Merchant
I may be remembering things wrong and haven not watched the game in a long time BUT -- I seem to remember the pressure that lead to the pick when the Steelers were deep in their own end came right up the gut. I also seem to remember that Matthews filled through a center/guard gap to blow up Mendenhall and cause the back-breaking fumble. I also have it in my head that Ben had no where to step up in the pocket to all game because the interior of the line got no push. Based on a quick scan of the Youtube highlights, both plays were a combination of the crap sandwhich of Legursky and Kemo not blocking all that well and well, Mendenhall was Mendenhall. ANyways...
As for Velasco -
http://www.steelersdepot.com/2013/12...e-than-injury/
http://www.steelersdepot.com/2014/01...-unrestricted/
http://www.steelersdepot.com/2014/01...centersguards/
I doubt Velasco is an option; he tore his Achilles late in the year.
Still, I definitely would rather get what I can for Pouncey now. There's no point in keeping him as a one-year rental, and I also don't want to be paying $10 million for one lineman given our other problems and our cap situation. Not sure what we can do on short notice, but we survived before without Pouncey and we'll do it again; we have to.
Let this be a lesson to all those who say things like "It would be great if we drafted __________ (insert name of offensive lineman) and locked down the left side for 10 years without having to worry about it." Well -- yeah, you do have to worry about it. You have to worry about this. Your blue-chip offensive lineman won't throw many blocks for you after he leaves for Miami, and paying him market value isn't worth it.
See you Space Cowboy ...
Let me attempt to remove all the snark from this question, because I by no means am attempting to start an argument, but a discussion could be fun.
Who are you in favor of paying "market value"? Based on previous posts, the list of NOT worth it seems to include pass rushers, offensive linemen, wide receivers, and safeties.
While I by no means want to stand on the side of handing out money like candy and wrecking a cap structure for years and years, I do believe in paying high caliber talent high caliber money.
Say Pouncey comes back this season and plays at a high level (say top 10 centers in the game) for a full season. I am by no means saying give him stupid money (Alex Mack and the Jags) but paying him as such may not be the worst idea ever. If the Steelers continue to pick outside of the top 10, the will likely never field elite tackles, so having a rock-solid interior of the line may be the best they can hope for.
The value of the contracts is usually not what gets teams into trouble with the cap, it is the restructuring of the guaranteed money. It looks like the Steelers have recently gotten smarter about this. They left themselves "outs" with all of FA contracts this off-season and resisted the urge to restructure Timmons.
Array title="zulater has a reputation beyond repute">
Who knows when Velsaco will be back and ready to play? Remember it was a late season achillies injury. So even in a best case scenario he's probably going to start the season on the PUP list. And who's to say he's the same player after the injury? Of course the same questions exists with Pouncey, but at least with Pouncey you should have some sort of grasp on that after spring OTA's.
Gambling on Velasco just doesn't make sense to me. Ride Pouncey out this year and see if you can tag and trade him next offseason.
"A man's got to know his limitations."
This makes the most sense to me.
Not a bad idea. My concern would be that I can not remember the last "tag and trade" scenario that worked out equally. Usually the other teams know you are desperate to trade a player and will only give pennies on the dollar back.
Why not approach Pouncey with an incentive based extension later this off-season after Munchak et al have a better read on his rehab?
Array title="zulater has a reputation beyond repute">
I'd be fine with that. What I would really like is to have one year of Ben's career where the line was strong and consistent at every position from start to finish. If that results in some offseason decision making or turbulence next offseason, oh well such is life.
I just want that one year where the offense lives up to it's potential, and it starts with the o-line. And to me Pouncey is a big part of that.
"A man's got to know his limitations."
we could probably garner something in the neighborhood of a 2nd and 4th or 5th for Pouncey now ..... Tag n Trade we are luck to get half that ( possibly a 3rd ) we would get that for leaving him walk so why risk the $$'s .....
when healthy he is a very good C , problem is you can not rely on him being healthy and we wont be able to afford him ...
for me , that is reason to trade him and draft a suitable replacement and sign a serviceable vet ...
lets say we could land a 2nd and 4th ...
we could draft one of the top LGs in the draft with the 2nd rounder and get Stork ( who will be more than serviceable ) at C
huge upgrade to one interior spot and slight downgrade at C but Stork lining up between Decastro and someone like Xavier Su'a-Filo or David Yankey is very formidable and one hell of an interior line IMO
Don't worry; no offense taken. I complain about overpaying players all the time, and I've not really said much about it beyond an individual basis.
First, I don't think that there's any position except OL where you should NEVER give out a big contract. And even that's not because OL is unimportant, but because it's a weakest-link situation and you have five guys, so you CAN'T do it. Two All-Pros, two average guys and a scrub don't balance each other out and make an above-average line or even an average one; the line as a whole will be as good as the scrub. (Cornerback works the same way, except that there's only two of them.) So unless you go big on all five positions, it does you little good to go big on one or two, and you can't go big on all of them because of the cap. What you want is a balance of above-average guys making medium salaries, and hopefully one or more will be on their rookie contracts and save you some money. Take a look at these examples of how some successful teams handle it vs. some traditionally unsuccessful ones:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...denver-broncos
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...gland-patriots
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...rancisco-49ers
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...bay-buccaneers
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...ngton-redskins
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...eveland-browns
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...innati-bengals
As for big contracts at other positions, it's OK to do that sometimes, but the problem is that at the high end, "market value" gets away from talent very quickly. If you'll excuse the crude drawing, I'd say it looks something like this:
You've basically got three tiers of salary: The rookie contracts, the veterans making market value, and then the insanely overpriced. Who you want for your best players are the guys just before the elbow of the second big jump - guys who are very good players who contribute 95% of what players in the very top tier do, but for $6M or $8M instead of $11M or $14M. Antonio Brown is a perfect example of that; Casey Hampton and A. Smith were before they declined; Keenan Lewis would've been one if he wasn't playing for New Orleans; Timmons would've been another except that we outbid ourselves and put him in the wrong tier.
The problem with players in the very top pay tier is that they all get paid like they're the Defensive Player of the Year, but only a couple actually are that good. Some guys actually do justify that salary, but it's rare. In our entire recent history, I'd say Troy Polamalu and James Harrison are the only ones who have been that good.
If there's a guy whose "market value" is the same as Troy Polamalu or James Harrison in their primes, but he's not Troy Polamalu or James Harrison in his prime, then you've got a problem, and really the only thing you ought to do is let it be somebody else's problem. Worilds at $10M is exactly that; Worilds at $7M or maybe even $8M is not. DeSean Jackson at $11M is that kind of problem; DeSean Jackson on Brown's salary is not. Just about any position can make it into the top tier if the player is really that level of a difference-maker, but very, very few are, and it's a very, very expensive mistake to make. 80%-90% of big-money contracts end up not being justified, so 80%-90% of the time I definitely am against them.
Offensive line is the one special category because while their salary can make it well into the $10M+ top tier, the value of any one player maxes out before that big jump, so that is why the big salary there is off the board entirely as far as I'm concerned.
See you Space Cowboy ...
Array title="Shoes has a reputation beyond repute">
Makes sense to me.
Nope. That play broke down primarily because of that no blocking, holding-call-waiting-to-happen waste of space Kemoeatu getting owned and being walked right back into Roethlisberger's grill (as usual), not Legursky. By a backup NT, no less.
Here's the whole play in nausea-inducing detail - pay particular attention at about 53 seconds into the clip:
86WARD has it right - in fact, Legursky may have been the only bright spot for us in that whole shitty game. Legursky wasn't much of a guard, but he was a damned good center.
I can totally get on board with that. I did not follow all the links yet, but I will. I think I can see and agree with you on almost everything. I think my only point is that Pouncey at 5-7 million per might be okay, but not 8-10. Not sure if you would agree, but that is where I was coming from.Don't worry; no offense taken. I complain about overpaying players all the time, and I've not really said much about it beyond an individual basis.
First, I don't think that there's any position except OL where you should NEVER give out a big contract. And even that's not because OL is unimportant, but because it's a weakest-link situation and you have five guys, so you CAN'T do it. Two All-Pros, two average guys and a scrub don't balance each other out and make an above-average line or even an average one; the line as a whole will be as good as the scrub. (Cornerback works the same way, except that there's only two of them.) So unless you go big on all five positions, it does you little good to go big on one or two, and you can't go big on all of them because of the cap. What you want is a balance of above-average guys making medium salaries, and hopefully one or more will be on their rookie contracts and save you some money. Take a look at these examples of how some successful teams handle it vs. some traditionally unsuccessful ones:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...denver-broncos
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...gland-patriots
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...rancisco-49ers
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...bay-buccaneers
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...ngton-redskins
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...eveland-browns
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/int...innati-bengals
As for big contracts at other positions, it's OK to do that sometimes, but the problem is that at the high end, "market value" gets away from talent very quickly. If you'll excuse the crude drawing, I'd say it looks something like this:
You've basically got three tiers of salary: The rookie contracts, the veterans making market value, and then the insanely overpriced. Who you want for your best players are the guys just before the elbow of the second big jump - guys who are very good players who contribute 95% of what players in the very top tier do, but for $6M or $8M instead of $11M or $14M. Antonio Brown is a perfect example of that; Casey Hampton and A. Smith were before they declined; Keenan Lewis would've been one if he wasn't playing for New Orleans; Timmons would've been another except that we outbid ourselves and put him in the wrong tier.
The problem with players in the very top pay tier is that they all get paid like they're the Defensive Player of the Year, but only a couple actually are that good. Some guys actually do justify that salary, but it's rare. In our entire recent history, I'd say Troy Polamalu and James Harrison are the only ones who have been that good.
If there's a guy whose "market value" is the same as Troy Polamalu or James Harrison in their primes, but he's not Troy Polamalu or James Harrison in his prime, then you've got a problem, and really the only thing you ought to do is let it be somebody else's problem. Worilds at $10M is exactly that; Worilds at $7M or maybe even $8M is not. DeSean Jackson at $11M is that kind of problem; DeSean Jackson on Brown's salary is not. Just about any position can make it into the top tier if the player is really that level of a difference-maker, but very, very few are, and it's a very, very expensive mistake to make. 80%-90% of big-money contracts end up not being justified, so 80%-90% of the time I definitely am against them.
Offensive line is the one special category because while their salary can make it well into the $10M+ top tier, the value of any one player maxes out before that big jump, so that is why the big salary there is off the board entirely as far as I'm concerned.
- - - Updated - - -
To both you and 86Ward, I stand corrected. I had remembered incorrectly. Legursky got blowed up on the fumble, but the rest was basically Kemo. In fact some other highlights indicate it was Kemo all night. I should have remembered how terrible that cat was.
Just his name makes me cringe...not as bad as the name Mahan though...lol
If we could keep Pouncey for $5M-$7M, I would be completely behind it. $7M for me is at the very top of what I would want to pay even the very best lineman, but he is one of the few that really is that good. For $10M ... well, like I said, even the best lineman in the world can't make $10M worth of difference.
Unfortunately (for us), with a guy in Pouncey's situation, $5M is almost laughable and $7M is at the very low end of "market value" ... the only way I would even see $7M happening is if the injury plays into it. As in, maybe he thinks playing out the one remaining season to get to UFA is too much of a risk, so he's willing to trade a little of the top-end money for security. I don't think any sense of "team loyalty" or "a chance to be in a winning environment" or "loving the city of Pittsburgh" is really going to do it; everything I've seen would indicate that he's going to be a complete mercenary.
See you Space Cowboy ...
Yeah it is pretty clear that the Pouncey Boys (kinda like a messed up version of the Hardy Boys) are in this to get paid. Although "our" Pouncey does seem to be a bit better of a human being than his brother.
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