The annual NFL trade deadline is now right around the corner and because of that we’ve seen a flurry of deals over the course of the last week, several of which that have included cornerbacks being dealt. However, while a few more notable trades might take place around the NFL in the coming week, don’t expect the Pittsburgh Steelers to be involved in any of them.
During his Tuesday press conference, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was asked if NFL teams are now more willing than ever to take on new players via trades in the middle of a season despite the challenges that might come with making such deals.
“I can’t speak for the National Football League, or what’s going on globally, I know that we’re not major players in that market and when we are it’s because probably we coveted that particular player in the draft,” Tomlin said Tuesday. “And so we had a level of comfort about who they are as football men, but also who they are as people and had a certain level of comfort with that. That’s probably been the instance with us, that we felt like we’ve done the work even prior to the trade discussion because most of those instances we look hard at those men prior to the draft in which they came out.”
The Steelers acquisitions of safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and tight end Nick Vannett via trades since the 2019 regular season started are evidence of what Tomlin said on Tuesday. Both players the Steelers had interest in ahead of them both being drafted in their respective years.
There’s been a lot of click-bait articles written about the Steelers and potential trade targets they might have over the course of the last week but on the surface it doesn’t appear as though the team will make any more deals ahead of this year’s deadline, which is usually the case in most years.
The Steelers entered Tuesday with $3,420,566 in available salary cap space, according to the NFLPA, and that’s another obstacle that most seem to forget about when it comes to the team potentially acquiring a higher-profile player ahead of the trade deadline. The acquiring of Fitzpatrick and Vannett in recent weeks were facilitated by both players having easily manageable salaries and cap charges.
