This is apparently going to continue to be a topic for a while since it keeps popping up, but so many within the Pittsburgh Steelers media and its immediate environs seem to be willing a divorce with backup quarterback Mitch Trubisky.
Does anybody want to pay someone $8 million to be a backup quarterback? No, of course not. Is it a crazy thing to do to secure an option in which you’re very comfortable behind a young and very affordable starter? I don’t think so.
While basically everybody at this point has at least acknowledged it’s extraordinarily unlikely that they release him, the topic of potentially trading him keeps rearing its head. Yesterday’s information cycle brought us an interesting interpretation of that angle, albeit one I find unlikely.
Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette during his latest chat was asked what draft value Trubisky could potentially bring back via trade. Perhaps a part of him actually thought he was being conservative when he responded, “Probably no more than a third, likely a fourth[-round pick]”.
I ask you, the community: do you think the Steelers could conceivably trade Trubisky, under normal circumstances, and get back a fourth-round pick? Let’s assume the context is a near-future trade in which they acquire a 2023 draft pick. How likely is it that they could get a pick that high, early on day three?
I’ve already stated my opinion on this topic and concur with Dulac’s coworker, Ray Fittipaldo, who in his own chat responded to a question by stating that he believes Trubisky has little if any trade value. After all, if you’re so eager to get rid of a player and his salary, why assume anybody else wants him enough to give something up for him?
And trading him while eating part of his salary is a deeply undesirable option. The primary objection to his status as a backup is that his salary is comparatively high for the role. If you eat a part of the salary, then you still carry money from him while also needing to use additional cap space to replace him with a similarly competent player.
At that point, you might as well keep him. Not because he offered, as Dulac described, the “Best QB play they received all season”, but because the alternative doesn’t really seem to be any better. At that point you’re just moving the furniture around.
Dulac did say that the only way the Steelers would trade Trubisky is if they approach him to reduce his salary and he refuses and asks instead to be traded or released. Yet I think his opinion of his worth is more robust than most.
Later in the same chat, when asked if he thinks somebody would give the Steelers a fifth-round pick for him, he said, “I’m sure someone would, based on the QB play I saw around the league this season”. But that sounds more realistic if we’re talking about being deep into the offseason already and somebody loses a quarterback to injury. And by then Pittsburgh would likely already be set with Trubisky as the number two and no viable alternative themselves.
In other words, I still say you should very much anticipate seeing him in uniform this season wearing a baseball cap on the Steelers’ sideline. He might not be happy about being a backup, but he’ll enjoy making $8 million. And it’s not like he’s starting anywhere else unless Brian Daboll goes insane.
