Steelers Quietly Made A GENIUS Roster Move

Steelers Quietly Made A GENIUS Roster Move

All right, Nick, let’s talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers. Pittsburgh, you know, not a ton of news in Pittsburgh right now, but there are some things that are in the news that I think affects affects Pittsburgh and shows how smart they were and some things they did earlier this off season. I think this is going to be really interesting for Steelers fans and shows this organization was on top of it and they did some really key things at exactly the right time. I think Steelers fans will love this one. But first, I’m Andrew. That’s Nick and this is Saturday morning inspection. Right, Nick, as I alluded to, the Steelers have done something very smart and that is being first or in this case at least early to the table when doing big deals with star players. As we saw with what happened with the Mike Parson deal, sometimes when you’re not first or early to the table, things can either take a turn or in this case, you know, really just go completely wrong. Not a great look for how it turned out in that note. But the Steelers weren’t that way. They did come to the Taylor ear table early, excuse me, and they made a really smart move regarding TJ Watt. So, let’s get into our first tweets just to remind you in case you forgot what happened with the TJ Watt deal and the Michael Parsons deal and then we’ll get to some data on it on the other side. So, this first tweet uh they’re stacked on top of each other is from Adam Shfter just reminding us what TJ Watt’s deal was. It says Steeler star TJ Watt became the highest paid non NFL uh non-QuB in NFL history for the second time in his career. Uh they had a three-year $123 million extension that is $18 million uh fully guaranteed $41 million per year average. So again at the time highest for any non-quarterback in the NFL which great salary, great player, very deserving of it. So I think that in its own right is very very good. But we can now see how it was good for the Steelers to do this early cuz the Cowboys trade Micah Parsons to the Packers. And now we see what his deal is as well. It says uh Cowboys trading defensive end Micah Parsons to the Packers and agreed to a 4-year $188 million deal. 136 million guaranteed, which is roughly $30 million more guaranteed than TJ Watt’s deal. and he’s at an average of $46.5 million per year as well. So, I think this just shows Steelers savings on a guy TJ Watt who’s a very good player. I’d say arguably as effective at points as Michael Parsons has been. Michael Parsons has been really good. It’s kind of hard to compare the two guys. It’s just not fair. They’re both extremely good players, but for them to come early to the table, they got a discount on TJ. And there was a lot of defenders that really need to get paid this off seasonason. We’re thinking, you know, TJ Watt, we’re thinking Micah Parsons, Max Crosby a little while ago, thinking Trey Hendrickson had to get paid this off season as well. So, lots of guys had to come to the table to sign big defensive contracts. And for the Steelers to come in early and do it, they got some savings out of it. So that leads me to our next chart here. Just kind of breaking down TJ Watt’s salary year by year. And I think this really just shows this first year for the Steelers for 2025, he actually has a very low cap hit, a $23.3 million cap hit. Then 2026, he has a $42 million cap hit. 27, another $42 million cap hit. There’s a potential out in 2028, but that 2028 cap hit is 46.5. Again, reminding you 41 uh million APY average per year for his salary. But the most important thing I think is when we look at what they’re getting for their money. So, let’s bring up my next chart here. And this is just a chart highlighting the top edge rushers factoring in stats from last year because that’s what you get paid off your performance of the LA this past year. Totality circumstances are somewhat involved. But a lot of times you hear contract here. Guys need to go out and perform. That’s what you get paid off of the previous year’s performance. And when you look at TJ Watt compared to Micah Parsons, compared to Max Crosby, the dollars he was paid per sack, which for those edush positions are the impact, you know, stat that you want to see your guys get a lot of. That’s the metric for a lot of people of how good an ed rusher is, is how many sacks they have. You look at TJ Watt, he’s actually the lowest on this chart, which is good. That means they are paying him the least amount per sack that he gets, meaning they got the best deal on him. They see Max Crosby all the way on the right. He’s over $4 million per sack, which is quite a lot more than TJ Watt. You see Micah Parsons, he’s just under 4 million uh dollars per sack, right? About $3.8 million per sack. Then you got TJ Watt down there at the bottom of this chart, which is about $3.5 million per sack. very good deal for the Steelers and showing some of the top edge rushers in the league. They got the best deal on TJ Watt. And I think again this is all because they came to the table early and were able to get a deal done with TJ Watt. Smart front office negotiations for the Steelers. They did a really great job here and again able to get a really good deal on a really great player. Curious what your thoughts are on all of this, Nick. But before we get to you Steelers fans, in the comment section below, let us know what are your thoughts on everything just deals TJ Watt here. Are you happy with how the deal went? Are you disappointed with how the deal went? Do you think that it was good, bad, and different? Just let us know now that you see all the circumstances, all these other players coming to the mix. I think it was different early on, but now what are your thoughts on how everything panned out with the Steelers? Let us know in the comment section below. But nonetheless, Nick, what are your thoughts on everything here for the Steelers? So, I think there’s definitely a lot to unpack, but I think first and foremost, let’s give credit, like you said, to the Steelers for getting it done at the price they got it done. The resetting of the market with Michael Parsons at 47 million APY roughly. I mean, that is a bonkers number. We’re talking about a 15% over TJ Watt, right? So, that’s huge. That is a massive overpay from the Green Bay Packers perspective. And I love the stat you showed right there when it comes to how much dollars you’re paying per sack because I know people love to say, “Well, there’s more. There’s more to being an edge rusher than sacks. What about pressures? What about pass rush win rate?” And all that advanced analytics is great. I love that data. We talk about that data all the time. But when it comes to the top of the top of the top, if you’re a top three, top five guy, you got to get sacks. You got to be hyperproductive, right? If you’re getting paid 40 million per year, you better be a high sack guy. You better be a big tackles for loss guy. You better force a lot of fumbles. better recover a lot of fumbles, right? Parsons is a great player. He is an outstanding player, but he’s not the same on a productivity basis as he is on, let’s say, a pressure basis or an advanced analytics basis. And and I’m not trying to bash Parsons. Again, I think he’s absolutely outstanding, but the reality is TJ Watt has been hyperproductive since he showed up to Pittsburgh and he’s maintained that over the course of his Steelers career and that’s how you earn the big bucks. That’s how you deserve being that much getting compensated that much money. And I think that’s the important thing to highlight here is the meritocracy element here in Pittsburgh. You play you pay players if you want to win. If you want to have a good locker room, if you want a good culture, you pay them what they’re worth. You don’t underpay them 15%. You don’t overpay them 15%. You underplayer if you underpay players 15%. You look a little cheap. You look stingy. You look like the Cincinnati Bengals if I’m being totally honest. And if you talk to any Bengals fans and Steelers fans, I don’t know how often you talk to those guys, they’re very frustrated with their leadership, how stingy they are, how cheap they are. They feel like they’re trying to underpay everyone. And then you have the Green Bay Packers here that overpaid by 15%. And that’s the other side. If you have a locker room, if you’re a guy and you see Parsons, even though you know he’s a great player, but he’s getting overpaid for the compensation in terms of the productivity he’s providing, you’re like, “Well, what the heck? How come I’m getting paid now only market value or a little bit below market value? Parsons is getting 15% over. Maybe I should get at least a little bit over market value.” You create locker room issues. You create issues there. It’s just a fact. Anyone who’s worked for any sort of company, right, understands this. If you’ve got a really good member of a team and he’s overpaid though, no matter how good he is, if he’s overpaid severely, other people on the team might be like, “Why is he overpaid?” Yeah, we know he’s good. We know he’s a good employee, but why does he get so much more? That hurts a team. That can destroy a team, whether it’s in the corporate world, whether it’s at a charity, a church, or what we see here in a football team. So, paying a player what they’re worth based on their compensation, right move here from the Pittsburgh Steelers. I love to see it. But let’s talk about raw dollars here for for a second just to really highlight something I think is important. Mas, if you don’t mind throwing up the chart on the screen that I sent you, uh, talking about APY in millions per year of the top edge rushers and working left to right, you can see in just in decreasing order, you got Michael Parsons resetting the market, then TJ Watt, then Garrett, then you’ve got, uh, Hunter there. You got Crosby, and then Bosa, Hendrickson, uh, Josh Hines, Allen, Burns, and then Sweat to finish off the list. And you can notice right away the massive gap right there between Parsons and Watt. That’s a basically about the same as as the gap between TJ Watt and Nick Bosa right there. So they’re talking about a massive gap in terms of compensation. Is Michael Parsons worth that much more than TJ Watt? Absolutely not. I could make an argument that TJ Watt being as productive as he is is worth even more than Micah Parsons. And this is where it’s really important when you’re trying to build a team, you’re actually trying to build a consistent winner that you don’t overreach. You don’t put yourself in a terrible situation. I could make an argument that the Pittsburgh Steelers have been a little bit too much underreaching over the past, you know, decade or so. But one of the things if you if you go under a little bit, you don’t overextend yourself is you’re always in contention. You always have a chance. And right now, the Green Bay Packers, they went all in. It’s one of those things. It could work out great for them, but if it doesn’t, it’s a total disaster. The Pittsburgh Steelers have a great player, have a productive player in TJ Watt, but they also have some flexibility, right? And that’s what the Steelers have going forward. And I understand there’s questions about the quarterback position long-term after the Aaron Rogers era ends, but if you look at the rest of the roster here, they’ve got a lot of options. They’ve got a lot of flexibility. The Green Bay Packers have none, right? I think Jordan Schultz, the reporter, recently said the Packers are the first team in NFL history that have two players eating up more than hund00 million in cap space on their roster. Absolutely bonkers, right? We’re talking about over a third over 35% of your cap space on two people. Absolutely crazy. That’s not that’s not conducive to long-term success. It just isn’t. So, the Steelers again, smart roster management, and you talk about the timing of getting the deal done with TJ Watt and all of that, but also consider the fact of Miles Garrett and and and Crosby getting similar deals at similar times and all that kind of structure. Despite all those guys all got paid this off seasonason, what do you notice the Steelers got TJ Watt paid for? Basically at the same level as Garrett, right? What did what happened with Michael Parsons? 15% above. So even though the market was sort of set with Garrett and kind of set with Crosby a little bit, TJ Watt basically in that ballpark, right? Instead, what the Packers had to do with Parsons is go way above and beyond. And I think Marco Parsons is great. I don’t think he’s worth that much money. And I think the Steelers deserve a lot of credit here. It’s one of those things because it’s it’s Pittsburgh and we’re always focused on the quarterback position with them and even more so now with Aaron Rogers that we really forget how in terms of what they do in terms of roster management, roster structure, they do a lot of really smart things. They haven’t gotten quarterback right since Big Ben, so it sort of obiscates a lot of that. But they do a really good job. Omar Khan deserves a lot of credit with this move right here. Yeah, Nick. And I think one thing in particular that you bring up that I think really important is you talk about, let’s talk about Green Bay just for a second. the moves like this, like what Pittsburgh does when they underpay guys a little bit or they come into the table at the right time and so they don’t have to overpay guys is you look at what Green Bay did and if they are able to perform with like what the Rams did per say when the Rams went all in and go and win a Super Bowl that’s great and everyone says okay well the Rams they went all in they won the Super Bowl so good for them it paid off but what happens when you go all in and it does not work out like you said it is a disaster. So again, Steelers avoiding the disaster in that aspect. Green Bay, they’ve set themselves up. It’s a 50/50. Either they go on to win a Super Bowl with Parsons on this roster, or if they don’t, it’s a disaster. It’s something that set him back, like you said, $100 million for two players on one roster. That’s a pretty steep price to be had. You have to make sure those two guys are going to be able to win you a ton of games because like you said, a third of your roster tied up uh as far as dollars allocated to those two players. I think they could get a lot of good players in there for that amount of money if you trimmed it down a little bit. So, I think this is a gamble and I think the Steelers, they took the smart route. They had a great player who, like we said, obviously is just as good, if not some argue would be more productive than Mike Parsons and TJ Watt. They got him for that discounted rate and they didn’t have to do what the Packers did. So, I think they got the best of both worlds here. They locked up the good player, the productive player, and they set themselves up to be able to go out and get some more of those players that can help win so they didn’t have to go all in on one single or two single guys. This was a great move by the Steelers, and I think they set themselves up very well this offseason. [Music]

The Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t get a whole lot of attention for this move but recent news has made them look really smart. The Steelers deserve a lot of credit for how they handled this situation. It bodes very well for their fiture. Fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers should be excited by this news.

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