When news broke that the Pittsburgh Steelers traded OL Kendrick Green to the Houston Texans prior to the deadline for final roster cuts, many fans were ecstatic. Their belief was that Green had a minuscule chance of making the 53-man roster, having struggled throughout the preseason while other offensive linemen, like Spencer Anderson and Dylan Cook, represented themselves well for the final spots on the roster.
GM Omar Khan managed to flip Green for a 2025 sixth-round draft pick, a lower selection in the draft two years from now. While a majority of those following the Steelers were happy to get anything for Green, Garrett Podell of CBS Sports was more critical of the deal with the Texans, giving the Steelers only a C- grade for the trade while giving Houston a B- grade for addressing its offensive line depth.
“The Pittsburgh Steelers received compensation for a player who no longer had a role along their offensive line,” Podell wrote for CBS Sports. “Houston needs reinforcements at many positions after finishing 3-13-1 and one last season. More offensive line depth in the form of a 24-year-old former third-round pick isn’t a bad way to go. Pittsburgh gets some credit for squeezing a pick out of the Texans for a player who didn’t touch the field for them in 2022. However, that pick being two drafts from now in 2025, and it being three rounds later than where they selected Green bumps their marks down a touch.”
Podell points to the loss in value Pittsburgh takes for trading away Green for a future sixth-round pick when he was a third-round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. While this may look like a loss of value on the surface, ultimately, the Steelers are making the most of a situation where they got the evaluation process on Green wrong from the get-go. As Alex Kozora of Steelers Depot has said, Pittsburgh miscast Green coming out of college as a pro-ready center prospect when he was none of those things, being thrown into the fire Week One of his rookie year and set up to fail.
Khan did the best he could with the situation, not being the guy who made the call of drafting Green in 2021. He knew that Green wasn’t going to make the roster and found a buyer in the Texans, who had multiple injuries along their offensive line as well as a general manager in Nick Caserio who reportedly had interest in Green coming out of college. If anything, Pittsburgh should have received a higher grade than the Texans. Khan was able to scrape out some value for a player he knew he was going to release, getting a draft pick for a player the Texans may have been able to acquire for nothing had they decided to wait.
It’s not like the Steelers pulled off a heist with the Green trade like they did when they dealt WR Chase Claypool to the Chicago Bears last year. However, you need to give credit where credit is due with the Steelers getting value in exchange for a player they knew they were going to part with via roster cuts. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and credit to Khan for finding a suitor that valued Green enough to strike a deal at the 11th hour.
