The Pittsburgh Steelers took a public relations risk in signing CB Cameron Sutton following his arrest for domestic violence. But otherwise, the risks are pretty minimal. He is a player that they know well due to past history. His contract is a Veteran Salary Benefit deal with no signing bonus.
Even when it comes to availability, they likely already have a very good idea of what they’re facing, Mark Kaboly believes. Speaking to Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller on Friday. He also says the Steelers and other teams know a lot more about issues like Sutton’s than you might realize.
“You’d be shocked at the process that they go through with their own internal security people to be able to look beyond what you see on affidavits and police reports”, Kaboly said, a topic that hasn’t come up too much in Pittsburgh since Ben Roethlisberger’s scandal back in 2010. But at the time, there was quite extensive talk about the resources at NFL teams’ disposal to gather information. That includes information from the league office about what the repercussions might be.
“I would assume that the Steelers have some connections in the league. The owner’s been around for a while. I’m sure they get a little whisper in their ear of what the potential punishment would be”, Kaboly said, and there really is no need for assumptions. Owner Art Rooney II has a close relationship with Commissioner Roger Goodell. There’s about zero chance Rooney doesn’t have a sense of what suspension Sutton might realistically face.
“If it’s for a heck of a lot of games or a season, I don’t think they would’ve signed him”, Kaboly said of Sutton. “I think they know what’s coming ahead if it’s one game, two games, no games, or half a season. I think they know what’s coming down the road here”.
As Mike Florio previously discussed, the NFL set a sort of baseline of six games for suspensions of this nature. The actual suspension varies wildly on a case-by-case basis, however, to as few as just one game. A lot of it has to do with the cooperation of the victim and any possibly mitigating circumstances. Sutton’s cooperation with a pre-trial diversion program will benefit him there, but he will face a suspension of some kind.
“I think he will suspended, but I think they know at least in a range they’re comfortable with where that might be going”, Kaboly said of the Steelers’ decision to sign Cameron Sutton. “I don’t think that it’s gonna be a half-a-season type of thing, or they wouldn’t have brought him on”.
Kaboly also echoed those latter sentiments earlier in the interview. He suspects that they reviewed all available options, and would have settled on another if it better suited them. But it seems that Sutton was the only realistic option they found beyond the moves they had already made. Not long before Sutton, they also agreed to terms with Grayland Arnold, and they also have Josiah Scott in-house.
