Examining The Mythical Steelers Draft Day Trade With Redskins For Pouncey

The hottest story in Steeler Nation right now outside of the retirement of Alan Faneca, the pending free agency of Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor and the Hines Ward run on Dancing with the Stars is the rumored report that Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder said he had a draft day deal in place with the Steelers should a certain player had fallen to the #16 spot. Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post reports that Snyder never made those comments on Sirius however and that the Steelers never called the Redskins about any trade, according to the report.

I could end this post right here, but will bite on it anyways. What else are we bloggers to do in mid May during a lockout?

The Redskins had already traded down once earlier in the 1st round when they traded the 10th overall pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars for the 16th overall pick in the first round and the 49th overall pick in the second round. One would assume that after that trade was made was when perhaps Kevin Colbert might have picked up the phone to see what the price of moving up would be.

It is not hard to deduct that the Steelers may indeed had eyes on Mike Pouncey, the twin brother of Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey, but what price would they have been willing to pay had something like indeed gone down? Below is the listing of the picks and pick values both teams had following the move down by the Redskins with the Jaguars using the draft pick value chart.

As you can see below, the Redskins still did not have a 3rd or 4th round draft to their name and most likely would have wanted to pick up another 2nd and a 3rd or 4th to move down another 15 spots in round 1 in a trade with the Steelers. We will never know what the price would have been as the Steelers certainly would not reveal it had there even been talks. One could assume at the very least it would have taken the Steelers 2nd round pick valued at 260 points and at the very least their 4th rounder in addition that was valued at 44 points. Had this been the deal the Steelers would have still been short 80 points in trade value, but still a believable deal had it gone down. I doubt seriously that Kevin Colbert would have come off a 2nd and a 3rd in addition to his 1st to move up to take an interior lineman, even if his last name was Pouncey. I also doubt that Snyder would have just settled for a 1st and 2nd only. If he would have, it would perhaps be better justified on the Steelers end to make the deal.

It is hard to predict of course how the rest of the draft would have played out had they only given up their 2nd round pick in this mythical deal, but one could easily fathom that cornerback would have been the Steelers play still in rounds 3 and 4 had they held those picks. Their 6th round selection of guard Keith Williams would not have been necessary then and that pick would likely have been used on a 5 technique defensive end or a tackle at that point as they wouldn\’t have drafted Cameron Heyward or Marcus Gilbert. We will never truly know. Had this mythical deal only cost a 1st and a 2nd, it would have been worth the price I suppose, but any more than that would have been too expensive in my eyes unless twin brother Mike has a cornerback conjoined to him as well. That too is only a myth I should state and I did not hear it on Sirius.

This will forever be one of those Steelers draft day “what ifs” that we could easily be talking about 10-15 years from now as we watch the careers of the Pouncey twins play out. The Miami Dolphins did not pass on Mike though so the “what if” really should stop there. Oh wait, and none of these talks ever took place either it seems. Consider this an unsolved hypothetical only and it appears it never even was in the works as well according to Steinberg. So this makes it a hypothetical of a hypothetical. Lord can this lockout please end soon.