Fair or not, wide receivers have long been viewed as the prima donnas of the NFL. In the Pittsburgh Steelers’ case, it’s been more than fair over the last two decades. There’s no way around it — the Steelers have a problem with evaluating the personalities of their receivers.
The latest example of a promising wide receiver who was traded early in his career is former second-round pick George Pickens. Steelers GM Omar Khan commented on this troubling trend and downplayed its significance as a real pattern.
“Some of that’s just really coincidence how it’s played out with the position,” Khan said in audio posted by 93.7 The Fan. “We’re always trying to get good players regardless of what position it’s at…I think there’s some coincidence to that, but we wanna get good players, good people and we’re chasing a championship and every decision we make is based on trying to win a championship no only in the future, but this year.”
Once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern. So what does that make six times? It’s hard to downplay the trend with six notable occurrences over the past 15 years. Santonio Holmes, Martavis Bryant, Antonio Brown, Chase Claypool, Diontae Johnson and George Pickens were all traded with attitude issues as a backdrop for the move. Only Brown and Johnson saw multiple contracts with the team.
The Steelers have been labeled a WR factory as they have managed to keep at least one or two very good receivers on the roster at any given time. But how many of those players have truly panned out to have productive and successful 10-year careers? The answer is a shockingly low number.
They obviously struck gold with Brown and turned him into a Hall of Fame-caliber player, but the continuous gambles on players with character concerns and prioritizing potential and traits over culture fit has resulted in very few long-term answers at the position. The offense continues to be one of the youngest in the league because the Steelers can’t seem to find candidates worth extending.
Most of those trades have returned decent value to the Steelers, so it hasn’t been a total loss. But that is no way to build a roster, or a culture, on the offense.
For what it’s worth, the Steelers have been drafting almost exclusively high-character players since Khan took over for Kevin Colbert three drafts ago.
