6 reasons Steelers CB Artie Burns remains a trade candidate before the deadline
By Tommy Jaggi
Burns is a former 1st round pick
Regardless of how Artie Burns has played over the past two seasons, the fact of the matter is that he comes with a ‘former 1st round pick’ label. This is still incredibly valuable to some NFL teams.
The Steelers bit on this back in 2016 when they gave up a 6th round pick to acquire cornerback Justin Gilbert despite his poor play with the Browns. The Saints did the same thing when they traded for a young, struggling corner in Eli Apple.
Apple was able to revamp his NFL career with a fresh start on a new team. He’s now the highest-rated cornerback on the Saints, according to Pro Football Focus, with an overall grade of 75.4 (12 points higher than former 11th overall pick, Marshon Lattimore.
Ironically enough, Eli Apple and Artie Burns were drafted just 15 picks from each other in the 1st round back in 2016, and Burns graded out better over his first two seasons.
The Steelers have moved on
There is no doubt that Artie Burns has fallen out of good graces with the Pittsburgh Steelers. After a promising start to his career, Burns has been disappointing over his last year and a half of football.
Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert went out and got players to replace him this offseason. Steven Nelson is turning out to be a tremendous signing, and is perhaps the best cornerback currently on the Steelers, while 3rd round draft choice, Justin Layne, stands to be a big part of Pittsburgh’s future.
Even former 2017 draft choice, Cameron Sutton, has outplayed Burns. The previous Miami product is certainly good enough to be on a roster, but the Steelers don’t have much use for him right now.