"I love the Moncrief move."
Be warned that every blessed syllable following this paragraph will come from the same keyboard that, only a year ago, typed what's above.
Talk about dropping the ball.
But you know, I'll stand by the scope of that column from March 14, 2019, the day the Steelers signed Donte Moncrief out of free agency, partly out of lingering disbelief for how quickly he disintegrated in Pittsburgh, partly because all the rest of it was ... well, dead-on.
Because within that, I also praised management for signing Steven Nelson, backed picking up the fifth-year option on Bud Dupree, expressed hope they'd find a way to draft Devin Bush and, while in all-out Nostradamus mode, laughed off the Browns' spending spree by calling them 'Paper Champions of the North.' Plus a bonus jab at Antonio Brown's exit in referring to the 'circus leaving town.'
Hey, four out of five.
I bring this up today since, in precisely two weeks, the NFL Draft will open the evening of April 24 with its second round and, within that, the 49th overall pick will belong to the local franchise. And while we've all got our own mocks and outlooks on who they will/should select, the one biggest positive to the process -- from this perspective, anyway -- is that there'll be no pressure to pick toward any position beyond a running back to support James Conner.
That, to revisit that 2019 column again, was what I appreciated most about the Steelers' setup at the time: They'd entered that offseason needing a corner, an inside linebacker and a wide receiver. And rather than lugging those needs into the draft, and forcing themselves to fill depth charts instead of taking the best talent, they preemptively addressed each by signing Nelson, Mark Barron and, uh, Moncrief. And even though Moncrief wound up a miserable miss, the philosophy paid off when they doubled down on those same three needs in the draft by taking, in order, Devin Bush, Diontae Johnson and Justin Layne.
It's an elegant, efficient way to shore up clear weaknesses, particularly when the rest of the roster's already strong. And this year, Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin have ... come close to replicating that.
They needed a tight end to support Vance McDonald, and they might actually have upgraded in adding Eric Ebron, never mind what they could achieve if sharing the field. They needed an interior offensive lineman who could back up at center and signed Stefen Wisniewski. They needed an interior lineman on the other side and traded for Chris Wormley. They needed a fullback and special-teams ace, and they filled both of those with Derek Watt.
Running back, of course, remains unresolved, which is why, even in the wake of compelling arguments for other positions, I'd still much, much prefer to see a stud added to Ben Roethlisberger's backfield. If that's Clyde Edwards-Helaire, the premier pass-catching back out of LSU, so much the better. Ben's shown for two decades he knows how to use the weaponry at hand.
I'll confess here to being more and more about Edwards-Helaire with every passing highlight:
I know, right?
But if -- and it's a reasonable if -- Colbert's scouts have done their diligence and a player they flat-out love happens to fall their way, as legitimately happened with T.J. Watt, David DeCastro and others, that's when the position can't matter. And that, in turn, is why it's wonderful to have reduced the actual need list to a single commodity.
One they're openly acknowledging, by the way.
“James is a Pro Bowl player who had an injury-type season last year,” Colbert spoke nine days ago on a media conference call that included our site. “We’re confident he'll be prepared physically to face that challenge. That won’t be a question. It’s our job to make sure we have options and alternatives and competition. That’s what we’ll be working on.”
From a broader position of strength, ironically.
• Ben's got to have targets. That's my default mode for all thoughts related to the Steelers' offense. If Ben likes having one tight end, give him two. If Ben likes handing the ball off, give him a back who can run a route. If Ben likes mixing it up with his receivers, let him navigate three very different ones in Johnson, JuJu Smith-Schuster and James Washington.
Once he's conducting and composing with all that, everyone becomes stronger with all the additional respect and space.
• The Steelers aren't pursuing other quarterbacks. They just aren't. Dale Lolley takes a sledgehammer to the concept this morning in Friday Insider.
• Roger Goodell's somewhat over-the-top assessment of the NFL's chances of returning to the norm this fall marked the most unsettling words yet from any of the major sports' commissioners, I thought.
“We’re gonna get through this," he began an interview with a Miami-based company. "We’re gonna get through this together as a country and as a world. This is something we’re going to overcome. People should keep that hope, because we’re going to get back to doing the things that we were doing and, hopefully, creating a great future for so many people, and I hope everyone stays involved and does what’s best in our communities in the short term but, more important, keeps focusing on the future. Because it’s going to be a bright future for us.”
Yeah, but what about our future, Rog?
• Now, for a real forecast worth recording for posterity, Eric DeCosta, the Ravens' GM, set the following as his goal for the coming draft in a call yesterday: “Hopefully, we can build our offense to the point where -- as we say, to be undefendable.”
Never mind the mangled syntax. The gem is that while, yeah, DeCosta's team rang up 30.4 points per game while riding Lamar Jackson, Baltimore's endless fawning over its 14-2 regular season somehow never seems to get punctuated the way it was in reality. Meaning the way the Titans held that 'undefendable' offense to 12 points and a single touchdown in the only game that mattered.
Clip and save.
• Bill O'Brien's being torn apart -- again -- down in Houston over a terrible trade -- again -- in which he parted with a second-round pick for the charred remnants of Brandin Cooks. You know, shortly after giving away DeAndre Hopkins.
DeAndre Hopkins wanted a raise. Bill O’Brien said no. And decided to trade an underpaid legit No. 1 WR for two of the worst contracts in football — David Johnson and Brandin Cooks — who are severely overpaid and major injury risks. #Texans
— Nick Mensio (@NickMensio) April 9, 2020
Bill O’Brien didn’t wanna give Hopkins a raise, but he just traded away a 2nd pick for a WR who’s on a $16M/year salary. In a year where the draft is exceptionally deep at WR.
what the hell is going on down there ?
— David Helman (@HelmanDC) April 9, 2020
Every GM in the NFL is Dwight and Bill O'Brien is Andy pic.twitter.com/3EgMXvfqB3
— Jeff Krisko (@JeffKrisko) April 9, 2020
I'll always admire O'Brien for what he pulled off at Penn State in impossible circumstances, but any other GM in the league who isn't constantly ringing his number ought to be canned.
In other words, we'd better hear about J.J. Watt for Dan McCullers by sundown.
• A poll conducted by Seton Hall University showed that nearly three-quarters of Americans won't be comfortable watching a sporting event until there's a vaccine:
Some 72% of Americans won’t go to stadiums or arenas to watch sports before a vaccine is developed for the coronavirus, acc to a new survey. https://t.co/cGw2J9oiM0
— Rick Westhead (@rwesthead) April 9, 2020
Always check the fine print on polls. This one surveyed a whopping 762 people, without ever identifying if any of them would go to stadiums or arenas in any circumstance. Meaning, you know, whether or not they're sports fans.
The virus is bad enough. The danger is dire enough. This isn't needed.
• I've cited South Korea a couple times as an example for how we'll get back into sports here and, just yesterday, the 10-team Korea Baseball Organization made clear it's returning in early May, with preseason games opening April 21. It's all tentative, officials are stressing, but still.
And the plan, like the one I wrote in yesterday's column would be the best, safest possibility for a North American return, will be to test like crazy. In South Korea, they've been way, way ahead of us in testing -- and everything, really -- so there's no shortage of tests. As such, it's no big deal to check all participants and personnel as often as it's deemed necessary.
• Neat to find Arky Vaughan, the Pirates' second-greatest shortstop, show up on this list yesterday:
The Hall of Fame's most underrated all-time greats: https://t.co/zwoevXD9TU pic.twitter.com/VPUeBJWivq
— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) April 9, 2020
It was put together by MLB.com, commemorating the sport's most underrated Hall of Famers by position. And Vaughan was a stirringly easy choice.
Which reminds me, as someone who left him off my top 25 athletes in Pittsburgh history, I've got work to do this weekend. Nos. 26-50 are coming out Monday.
• We'll get through this. We will.