There certainly are a lot of Pittsburgh Steelers fans currently wanting the team to trade for Arizona Cardinals cornerback Patrick Peterson prior to this year’s deadline even though it appears as if he’s not even on the market. While I will be shocked if Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert ultimately pulls off an October trade of any kind, he has done so once before and the coincidentally enough the Cardinals were even the trade partner.
On Oct. 2, 2013, the Steelers acquired tackle Levi Brown from the Cardinals in exchange for a conditional draft pick. The conditions of that draft pick revolved around Brown needing to be on the Steelers active roster for five weeks and unfortunately that never happened.
If you remember back, that 2013 season started with Mike Adams being the Steelers starting left tackle. However, poor showings by Adams during the team’s 0-4 start resulted in the Steelers trading for Brown during their bye week after returning home from London. It was believed that Brown might ultimately become the Steelers starting left tackle at some point during the remainder of that season if Kelvin Beachum wasn’t able to effectively win and keep the job. In fact, speculation at that time was that Beachum and Brown would both see snaps at left tackle in the Steelers Week 6 road game against the New York Jets.
During warm-ups of that Week 6 game against the Jets, Brown hurt his right triceps and wound up sitting that contest out. It was soon determined that he had re-tore the same triceps he had torn originally during the 2012 season and that of course ended his 2013 season. The Steelers then placed Brown on their Reserve/Injured list and moved forward with Beachum as their left tackle the remainder of the season.
None of what happened back in 2013 has any bearing on what may or may not happen in the coming days. However, it’s worth reemphasizing that the Steelers don’t have a rich history of acquiring players via trades in the month of October and especially since Colbert joined the team in 2000.
In case you’re curious, I believe that prior to the Steelers trading for Brown in 2013 that 1984 may have been the last time the organization traded for a player in the month of October. That player was offensive lineman Steve August and the Steelers acquired him from the Seattle Seahawks in exchange for a fifth-round draft pick.
