I passed along the word Sunday night that Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark would be all over ESPN this week and on Monday he was a guest analyst on NFL Live. During the hour long show, Clark was asked if he thought that the Steelers did enough this offseason. "Well if you look historically at the Steelers, we're not a very active team in free agency, said Clark. We don't bring in top name free agents. We try to stand pat as much as possible and we develop through the draft. "You get Jarvis Jones in the first round to replace James Harrison, who left via free agency. You also come Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers announced on Monday that Hall of Famer Joe Greene has retired from their player personnel department. Greene, 66, has spent the last nine years as a special assistant for pro and college personnel. Greene was drafted by the Steelers with the fourth overall selection in the first round of 1969 NFL draft out of North Texas and of course was part of the four Super Bowl winning teams of the 70's. He retired from the Steelers following the 1981 season after 13 years in the league and was rightfully inducted into the Pro Football Hall Of Fame in 1987. During his 13 seasons Read more [...]

I knew at some point this offseason that the Pittsburgh Steelers would need to address their depth at the tackle position, but I never envisioned it leading to the team signing Jacksonville Jaguars castoff Guy Whimper, who according to Pro Football Focus gave up five sacks in 2012 in less than 400 snaps played and another 14 in 2011 in a little more than 950 snaps played. So looking forward now past the signing of Whimper, what does this do to the prospects of Max Starks returning later on in the offseason? For starters, I think the Steelers needed a veteran warm-bodied tackle for the upcoming Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers made a move to bolster their depth at the tackle position on Monday as it was announced that the team has come to terms with veteran free agent tackle Guy Whimper. In addition to Whimper, undrafted rookie free agent linebacker/safety Terence Garvin was also signed to the roster. To make room for both Whimper and Garvin on the roster, the team released undrafted rookie center Ivory Wade and rookie defensive tackle Anthony Rashad White. Whimper was originally drafted by the New York Giants in the fourth round of the 2006 NFL Draft out of East Carolina. He played for Read more [...]

Season 3, Episode 100 of The Terrible Podcast is up and co-host David Todd and talk about the news that came out of the Pittsburgh Steelers rookie camp that took place over the weekend and this leads to us eventually talking about the undrafted free agent offensive lineman that were present over the weekend. I give a quick and dirty breakdown of all of them. Head coach Mike Tomlin seems to have a different opinion than linebackers coach Keith Butler does about the health of linebacker Sean Spence so we go over what each said about the Steelers third-round draft pick from last year. Reports Read more [...]

According to Kevin Acee of the The San Diego Union-Tribune, the San Diego Chargers recently tried to sign tackle Bryant McKinnie, who just re-signed back with the Baltimore Ravens over the weekend, but have yet to reach out to Pittsburgh Steelers veteran free agent tackle Max Starks. The Chargers, as Acee eludes to in his report, still have question marks at their left tackle position, but now appear to be set to try either King Dunlap or Kevin Haslam on the left side after missing out on McKinnie. Being as the Chargers reportedly made a run at McKinnie, it makes you wonder why they wouldn't Read more [...]

I wrote in my post draft breakdown of Pittsburgh Steelers fifth-round draft pick Terry Hawthorne that I thought it looked like he really got up high on his toes during his back pedal after watching tape of him and apparently he gets up too high for the liking of defensive back coach Carnell Lake. Hawthorne, who took part in the Steelers rookie camp this past weekend, said in an interview with steelers.com that him backpedaling too high was one of the areas that he received correction in over the weekend when it came to his technique. "They were correcting me on my technique," said Hawthorne. Read more [...]

41 players came to the 2013 Pittsburgh Steelers rookie camp and most reports suggest 41 players left without suffering a serious injury. That in itself made the first real Steelers practices of the offseason a success. Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin best summed up the rookie camp on Saturday after practice. "This is an instructional camp and obviously there are some things that we are evaluating, but primarily just giving and receiving of information, working with the young people, just laying a foundation for their careers and our football here in 2013," Tomlin said. "We're excited about Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers signed former San Diego State right guard Nik Embernate as an undrafted free agent last week and I came away unimpressed with him after watching him play against Boise State last year. In that game, Embernate had trouble anchoring in pass protection and was on the ground quite a bit after slipping off blocks. At that time I wondered to myself why there was such a fuss about him. Instead of researching him further, I moved on and pretty much wrote him off as being way over hyped. Shame on me. On Sunday I came across a 2011 highlight compilation video of Embernate Read more [...]

Are you ready for an overload of Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark on ESPN this coming week? If not, you better get yourself ready, because Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated is reporting Sunday evening that Clark will be on SportsCenter, NFL Live, NFL32, and ESPN Radio starting on Monday. According to Deitsch, Clark, who is entering the final year of his contract with Steelers, asked ESPN senior coordinating producer Seth Markman at the Super Bowl in New Orleans, if he could intern for the network over the summer in order to hone his broadcasting skills. "I want to show I'm capable Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers selected Oregon State wide receiver Markus Wheaton in the third-round of the 2013 NFL draft and below is my breakdown and grade of the pick. Measurables: Combine Invite: Yes, Height: 5110, Weight: 189, 40 Yrd Dash: 4.40, 20 Yrd Dash: 2.50, 10 Yrd Dash: 1.59    225 Lb. Bench Reps: 20, Vertical Jump: 37, Broad Jump: 10'00", 20 Yrd Shuttle: 4.02, 3-Cone Drill: 6.80 Breakdown: While Wheaton is fast, he certainly isn't as fast as Mike Wallace on the football field and I saw now evidence of an elite top gear. I am not knocking him for that, I am just trying to put the Read more [...]

Many of you probably already knew that the Pittsburgh Steelers did away with mocking the first round of the draft several years ago and now choose to mock themselves instead. General manager Kevin Colbert was asked to explain the process following the draft in an interview with David Todd on ESPN 970. "About five years ago we did away with really the mock scenarios, because it was an endless exhibition of the possibilities and what ifs, and we really didn't want to deal with that, said Colbert. "So what we started to do was we just mocked ourselves and said if he we were picking first, who would Read more [...]

Following a 2012 season that saw him miss three games due to injury and registering just four sacks, starting Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker LaMarr Woodley is certainly under the microscope this offseason. Woodley, who was called out by an unidentified teammate after the 2012 season ended for not being in the best of shape last year, was back in Pittsburgh on Saturday to speak at a luncheon for the P.A.C.T. Initiative and he spoke to Dan Gigler of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about his offseason training. "My offseason is going great. I'm looking forward to getting back with the team Read more [...]

It has long been known that Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Cortez Allen is again working out down in Florida at the Wide World of Sports complex alongside teammates Ike Taylor and William Gay under the watchful eye of renown trainer Tom Shaw, and Ralph Paulk of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review recently caught up with him to talk about the process. "Ike is one of the hardest workers I've met," said Allen, according to Paulk. "Seeing the way he does things is something that I would one day like to model. I'm getting a close-up view of what it takes to play 10 years in this league. "We know what's Read more [...]

According to Mark Kaboly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Twitter, undrafted rookie free agents Mike Farrell and Mike Golic Jr. strictly played left and right tackle respectively during the rookie camp this weekend. With Farrell, that's not a surprise as he started at right and left tackle last season for Penn State. Golic Jr., however, is a different story as he mostly played right guard and some center while at Notre Dame. The Steelers are likely looking at his versatility and also might be short on tackle bodies in addition. It will be interesting to see if Golic Jr. receives reps Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers allowed two of the five safeties that they had on their roster last season to walk off uncontested via free agency this offseason, as Will Allen signed with the Dallas Cowboys and Ryan Mundy signed with the New York Giants. The exodus of those two players left the Steelers with second year undrafted free agent Robert Golden as the only backup safety on the roster with game experience, albeit not a lot. As expected, the Steelers addressed the safety position in the draft by trading into round four in order to select Syracuse safety Shamarko Thomas. Like Golden, Thomas Read more [...]

Despite being severely cap-strapped until June 2nd rolls around, the Pittsburgh Steelers have still been able to sign a few free agents over the course of the last week in the form of running back LaRod Stephens-Howling and punter Brian Moorman. So how are they able to do this with such little cap room? They are doing it with the help of top 51 displacement and one year qualifying contracts. Displacement I have discussed before, and here is a post that I wrote on that subject a little while back. As far as one-year qualifying contracts go, those are given to players with four or more credited Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers wrapped up day two day of their 2013 rookie camp on Saturday and following the practice head coach Mike Tomlin addressed the media on the field. With the OTA sessions now on the horizon, Tomlin was asked if tight end Heath Miller (knee), linebacker Sean Spence (knee) and tackle Marcus Gilbert (ankle) would be able to participate in them. "All of the rehab is going according to plan and really no new news there," said Tomlin. "I did hear the opinion regarding Spence, my opinion differs. I think he's going to have a full recovery, but now you have two opinions, neither Read more [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers rookie running back Le'Veon Bell rushed for nearly 1,800 yards last season at Michigan State and I wanted to have a look at his splits in order to get an idea how he ran directionally. Being as there isn't a site that has those stats, I was forced to scrape them myself from the play-by-play on Yahoo, as they are the only site that I know of that list run directions. Unlike the NFL, however, they only use right, middle and left. After scraping these stats, I had the right amount of carries, 382, but the total yards are off by 7. This could be that Yahoo might list fumble Read more [...]

As you are probably well aware of by now, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders made the ESPN rounds this week and one of those stops included him being a guest on the Dan LeBatard is Highly Questionable show. Sanders talked about his humble beginnings that included having to eat ketchup and mayonnaise sandwiches as a child. Sanders also talks about how he had a temper in high school and had to learn how to control it. I am pretty sure you will be crying yourself, or him, a river after watching this. Also, not really. Read more [...]