Fox Sports activities’ analyst Nick Wright is placing on his common supervisor hat and telling Omar Khan what he ought to’ve executed in the course of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2025 offseason. Protected to say, Wright would’ve executed issues loads in a different way. Showing on Colin Cowherd’s The Herd Tuesday, Wright detailed his plan.
“I might’ve taken a completely completely different tactic this offseason,” Wright mentioned. “I wouldn’t have traded for DK Metcalf. I nonetheless would’ve traded away George Pickens. And I might’ve, as we are actually seeing with T.J. Watt wanting a brand new contract, I might’ve traded T.J. Watt to get a first-round decide and one thing else. And I might’ve mentioned, Mason Rudolph, you’re the person.”
For the franchise, Pittsburgh made the unprecedented transfer to amass Metcalf on the eve of free company. A blockbuster deal that despatched a 2025 second-round decide to the Seattle Seahawks in change for Metcalf, whom the crew instantly gave a $150 million deal. The biggest ever handed out to an out of doors addition. Whereas Pittsburgh’s Tremendous Bowl window isn’t open now, the pondering is just like the crew’s commerce for FS Minkah Fitzpatrick in 2019, a transfer that had the current and the longer term in thoughts.
Clearly, Wright isn’t offered on Pittsburgh including Rodgers. Both as a result of he believes it’s a foul match or as a result of Rodgers would play “too” properly for the Steelers, stopping the crew from touchdown a excessive 2026 draft decide.
The one space Wright was in alignment with was buying and selling away Pickens. Pittsburgh shipped him to the Dallas Cowboys for a 2026 third-round choice. Regardless of Pickens’ gaudy expertise, he introduced equally massive complications. Coming into a contract 12 months and with no likelihood of seeing an extension, the Steelers determined that buying and selling him for future capital was the very best strategy.
Watt’s contract scenario ramped up one other notch Tuesday when he did not report for the crew’s minicamp. A unique strategy than even his earlier contract 12 months, 2021, when he attended minicamp, Watt is now topic to upwards of $100,000 in fines ought to he no-show on Wednesday and Thursday. The controversy about buying and selling Watt has gone on since final season and solely intensified this offseason as Watt is doubtlessly seeking to change into the highest-paid cross rusher in soccer. In that case, that might put him above the $40 million common yearly worth Cleveland Browns DE Myles Garrett netted earlier this offseason.
Whereas Watt’s nonetheless a top-end cross rusher, figuring out his worth is difficult. He’s in his 30s and would require an enormous deal from any crew buying and selling for him, two parts that damage his commerce worth. He would possibly command much less on the open market than Wright thinks. Nonetheless, his plan was to tear the crew down and rebuild.
“I might’ve run that crew on the market for one 12 months to drive a tough reset,” Wright mentioned. “To enter subsequent 12 months’s draft with a number of firsts, a number of seconds. Clear up their cap. Their very own actually good decide. And have a reset from there.”
Financially, the Steelers aren’t in cap hazard, and if something, as Dave Bryan has identified, they should enhance their cap spending to succeed in the league’s three-year 90-percent threshold. A rule that stops the all-out tank Wright is suggesting, and a consideration that seemingly hasn’t occurred to him.
Pittsburgh figures to be out there for one of many high quarterbacks of subsequent 12 months’s draft, whoever that could be. Whereas Wright’s level is comprehensible in a slender sense, the Steelers are nonetheless ready to land a quarterback in 2026. It would seemingly require buying and selling up within the draft, however their coffers are filled with picks—presumably 12 in complete with 5 within the high three rounds.
The Steelers’ plan seems to be using the previous three drafts to construct up the trenches, with their 2025 picks targeted on the defensive position. In 2026, the mission can be discovering a quarterback. That’s one thing Wright can a minimum of agree on.
