The Pittsburgh Steelers once again stood pat during the recently concluded 2017 NFL Draft and by that, I mean, they didn’t make any trades. During a Tuesday interview on ‘Movin’ the Chains’ on SiriusXM NFL Radio, Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert was teased a little about not trading during this year’s draft and that included show co-host Pat Kirwan telling him he heard a rumor that there weren’t any phones in the team’s war room.
“We went into it saying and I said beforehand, ‘This first-round is very unpredictable, because I think there was no consensus on the order of the quarterbacks. So, I think with that in mind that, boy, I think people are going to be jumping around and moving to fit their own needs’,” Colbert said. “So, I think that played out. I believe it was five or six trades in the first-round and as far down as we were, we just said, ‘Look, we’re just going to let this thing come to us and see what’s there.’ I mean, we had a few calls come in from other teams and we made some inquiries, but were never serious, really, about moving.”
Even though the Steelers failed to move up or down during this year’s draft, Kirwan still asked Colbert if the infamous trade chart teams supposedly use to calculate the value of picks is still valued and more importantly, if it’s been modified.
“We understand that teams use it, Pat, and we will look at it based on what the other teams are thinking when we call them,” Colbert replied. “But I never want to lock myself into a chart if I feel we need to do something.”
Colbert went on to further explain his thinking as it relates to not being locked into what the trade chart suggests he do, or not do.
“The classic example, when we traded up for Troy Polamalu, we went up from 27 to 16 and we gave up a third and a sixth,” started Colbert. “A few years later, we traded up to get Santonio Holmes. We traded up from 32, I believe to 27 or 28. We only went up four spots and maybe we gave up a third and a fourth and everybody said, ‘Well, you gave up too much to get Santonio Holmes.’ And I just countered that with, ‘Well, this guy caught the game-winning catch in the Super Bowl.’
“So, the message there is, look, if you really want a guy, don’t be locked down by some chart. I mean, ok, you can say ‘You overpaid’, but in the end, what’s the final results? So, I never want to be locked in by any of those parameters. If we want a guy, then we’ll spend what we need to get him.”
