{"id":35315,"date":"2025-05-09T02:54:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T02:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/35315\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T02:54:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T02:54:12","slug":"im-scratching-my-head-tony-dungy-doesnt-know-what-steelers-plan-is-after-trading-george-pickens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/35315\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’m Scratching My Head:’ Tony Dungy Doesn’t Know What Steelers’ Plan Is After Trading George Pickens"},"content":{"rendered":"

After trading WR George Pickens to the Dallas Cowboys, the Pittsburgh Steelers won\u2019t have their leading passer, rusher or receiver<\/a> from 2024 back in 2025. QB Russell Wilson left in free agency, as did RB Najee Harris, and the team dealt away Pickens. Former NFL head coach Tony Dungy said on the Football Night In America podcast<\/a> that he doesn\u2019t know what the Steelers are doing after trading away Pickens, especially because their offense wasn\u2019t good last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year at this time, I was excited about the Steelers. I felt like they brought in a couple of quarterbacks who had potential. You can work with Russell Wilson and develop your young guy, and you can be in good shape. Now, take those two guys away. We\u2019ve got neither one of those quarterbacks. Our number one running back is not there. Our number one receiver is not there. And we weren\u2019t good enough last year on offense, so I don\u2019t know where we\u2019re going. I don\u2019t know what the plan is. Hopefully, it will take shape, but I\u2019m scratching my head right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh was always unlikely to bring back Wilson and Harris, but the offense hasn\u2019t gotten all that much better on paper. There\u2019s an argument to be made that the run game will be better with Kaleb Johnson and Jaylen Warren leading the backfield. DK Metcalf, who the team acquired earlier this offseason, should be an upgrade over Pickens at receiver. Whoever winds up being the team\u2019s No. 2 receiver will also represent an upgrade over Van Jefferson, but it\u2019s hard to argue that this offense will definitively be better than last year, especially with Aaron Rodgers still unsigned.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that the Steelers prioritized getting value for Pickens and weren\u2019t going to re-sign him with 2025 being the last year of his contract. But he made the team better in 2025. While additional 2026 draft capital could be good for the future, the Steelers aren\u2019t embracing the prospect of 2025 being a reset year. The team still has an eye on winning now, which is why the timing of the Pickens trade was certainly puzzling.<\/p>\n

It seems as if the Steelers\u2019 plan is to be good enough to potentially make the playoffs next season and push their chips all in for 2026 while looking for their franchise quarterback. But it\u2019s understandable to see why Tony Dungy and others would be confused about what the team is doing. The Pickens trade made the Steelers worse, and it\u2019s hard to get excited about what this team\u2019s offense will be in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After trading WR George Pickens to the Dallas Cowboys, the Pittsburgh Steelers won\u2019t have their leading passer, rusher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,13528,467,4125,6,520,57,2360,572,426,13529],"class_list":{"0":"post-35315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-football-night-in-america","10":"tag-george-pickens","11":"tag-najee-harris","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","15":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","16":"tag-russell-wilson","17":"tag-steelers","18":"tag-tony-dungy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114475621799254917","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}