With cut down day now finished, I wanted to focus on the highs and lows of what turned out to be an eventful few days for the Steelers. While trimming the roster is already a tall task, adding waiver targets, practice squad players, and ironing out any last-minute trades makes this an exciting time.
While these moves pale in comparison to some of the other offseason ones, they are still important in preparing this team for the regular season. The initial roster has been set, and while more shuffling may occur, this is the majority of the team we will be watching this season. Here are the three best, and two worst, moves from cutdown day.
Steelers best move #1: No added trades
It had become somewhat of a common fact that the Steelers would be looking to add some players at the end of every training camp via trade. Kevin Colbert made this a common theme, swapping and sending mid-round draft picks for the likes of Ahkello Witherspoon, Vance McDonald, and Justin Gilbert, just to name a few moves. Omar Khan followed suit in this tradition last season, acquiring Malik Reed and Jesse Davis for late-round picks.
While the occasional trade makes sense, doing this every year quickly depletes draft resources. Because of various moves like this, the Steelers didn’t have selections between the fourth and seventh rounds of the draft this season. That means you are missing out on some of the meat of draft day which limits the talent you can acquire.
This year was different though, as while two trades were completed, both involved the Steelers sending a player away and acquiring picks. Khan was focused on building the depth of this team, and it paid off. While not every notable depth player made this roster, it gave this team flexibility on cutdown day. Again, trades like this aren’t the end of the world, and sometimes they are fruitful, but not having to complete deals like this will afford the team some more picks in future drafts.