Happy Friday to all of you once again and let me officially welcome you to the slowest part of the NFL offseason.
The Pittsburgh Steelers wrapped up their 2017 offseason practices on Thursday and that now means we have six long and boring weeks before they start training camp in Latrobe. As always, we’ll do our very best to keep you entertained over the course of the next six weeks and our forthcoming content will include several previews of training camp from not only a position group standpoint, but an individual player one as well. We also intend on looking a little deeper into the college play of several of this year’s draft picks.
On a personal note, I will be leaving for Florida next Friday to visit with my ailing father so it will be up to Alex Kozora to handle this weekly segment later that evening. If you have any content ideas or issues with the site during that span of time, make sure to reach out to him on Twitter at @Alex_Kozora. I will return from Florida the following Tuesday night and should be back in my home office chair bright and early Wednesday morning.
As usual, I have five questions for all of you to answer in the comments below in addition to a recap of the answers from last week. Hopefully several of you can participate once again this weekend. As a Friday Flashback, here are the five questions I asked all of you to answer at this same time last year.
Have a great rest of your weekend and thank you to all who visited the site this past week. Here’s to hoping that the next six weeks pass quickly.
Peace and love, peace and love!
1 – How many total tackles for a loss (including sacks) do you predict for Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier during the 2017 regular season?
2 – Between Marvel Smith and Max Starks, which of the two was the Steelers best left tackle during the Ben Roethlisberger era and that time-frame only?
3 – By the time the Pittsburgh career of Alejandro Villanueva (22) is over, will have overtaken Starks (57) for the most regular season left tackle starts in front of Roethlisberger? He needs 36 more in order to do so.
4 – On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the worst, how would rate the Steelers “offseason drama level” as the team breaks for six weeks before training camp gets underway?
5 – What’s most likely to happen with Steelers offseason agent additions, wide receiver Justin Hunter and running back Knile Davis:
a) Both make the roster
b) Nether make the roster
c) Only Hunter makes the roster
d) Only Davis makes the roster
Recap last week’s Friday night questions per David Orochena:
Question 1 – The answers to this question were hard to quantify. Landry Jones evokes strong feelings for a career back-up quarterback who is currently ranked # 536 in David Orochena’s all-time Steelers list. Several people would rather have all the quarterbacks on the ESPN list as a back-up to Ben instead of Jones. Some added Colin Kaepernick as preferable to Jones. On the other hand, several people believed Landry Jones should be ranked higher than 14th with only a few of the back-ups ranked ahead of Jones. Some even indicated that they’d take Landry over anyone else on the list. I’ve reordered the quarterbacks based on the percentage of people’s preference over Jones. No consensus reached on where Landry Jones would fit so you can place him where you want him.
Tier 1
Jimmy Garoppolo (83.3%)
A.J. McCarron (76.7%)
Matt Moore (53.3%)
Tier 2
Nick Foles (40%)
Cody Kessler (36.7%)
Chase Daniel (30%)
Matt Cassel (26.7%)
Derek Anderson (26.7%)
Colt McCoy (23.3%)
Brock Osweiler (23.3%)
Drew Stanton (23.3%)
Matt Barkley (20%)
Tier 3
Chad Henne (13.3%)
Ryan Mallett (13.3%)
Colin Kaepernick (10%)
Geno Smith (6.7%)
Question 2 – Much easier to quantify. Over 63% took the over on 64.5 receptions made by Martavis Bryant during the 2017 regular season.
Question 3 – Dan McCullers stock value is down this year. The chances of Big Shade making the 53-man roster this year ranged from 0-85%. The median response was right at 50. 50/50 sounds about right unless he finally releases the beast hiding within himself.
Question 4 – By a close 55-45% vote; the majority believe that Alejandro Villanueva will get a contract for more than $5.9 million if he signs a new contract before the start of the regular season.
Question 5 – We were all over the place on who other than James Harrison should be DeAngelo Williams tag team partner in the ring. Vince Williams and his stink eye got the most votes with seven. He was followed by Al Villanueva (5) and Dan McCullers (4). Among the twelve others who received votes (including Joey Porter & coach Tomlin), my personal favorite was Chris Boswell. If you can get kicked out of a Penguins playoff game – the WWF was meant for you.
Bonus Question from 3 weeks ago – Speaking of the Penguins, Steelers Depot Friday Night Questions answerers pegged it. Our median response 3 weeks ago is that the Pens would win the Stanley Cup in six games. Well done!
