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http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-price-of-loyalty-in-pittsburgh/
It's long, so here are some highlights:
What’s happened over the past few years is similar to what we’ve seen in Dallas. In Texas, Jerry Jones has repeatedly fallen in love with players on his own roster and given them massive extensions, only to find that the players either weren’t very good or went south awful fast. Having spent heavily to lock up as many Pro Bowl–caliber starters as possible, Jones was then forced to rely on undrafted free agents and late-round picks on rookie deals to fill much of the second and third string. When those stars played poorly or got injured, the backups would be forced into starting roles, where they would be abysmal. Ask a Cowboys fan about Jeff Heath sometime.
n a league where finding marginal value is critical to team success, the Steelers have strangely cultivated a veteran middle class. Players like Brett Keisel, Larry Foote, Casey Hampton, and Levi Brown1 have occupied meaningful cap space in recent years without delivering distinguished levels of play. Every team has a player or two like this, but the Steelers have had more than most the past few seasons.
Most notably, the Steelers invested heavily in a pair of veteran defensive backs who have not delivered on their deals. In 2011, the Steelers gave 30-year-old Troy Polamalu and 31-year-old Ike Taylor new contracts, deals that locked each up through the 2014 campaign. Coming off of their Super Bowl loss to the Packers, Polamalu received a three-year, $29.6 million extension that left him one of the highest-paid safeties in football, while Taylor’s four-year, $28 million deal left him paid just below the level of top cornerbacks. The Steelers had fielded the league’s top defense in 2010 and surely expected Polamalu and Taylor to be the cornerstones of that defense through the better chunk of their new deals.
Since then, the defense somehow keeps getting worse while staying the same age.
Cornerback charting stats are shots in the dark at best, but Taylor’s numbers have gotten horrible, and they’re matched by how he looks on tape. LeBeau has asked a lot of Taylor in the past in terms of covering the other team’s top wideout, but Taylor no longer has that ability. Per Football Outsiders, Taylor was targeted more than any cornerback in football besides Cary Williams last year. Opposing offenses averaged 8.9 adjusted yards per throw in Taylor’s direction last year, the third-worst figure for any cornerback in football.
It's long, so here are some highlights:
What’s happened over the past few years is similar to what we’ve seen in Dallas. In Texas, Jerry Jones has repeatedly fallen in love with players on his own roster and given them massive extensions, only to find that the players either weren’t very good or went south awful fast. Having spent heavily to lock up as many Pro Bowl–caliber starters as possible, Jones was then forced to rely on undrafted free agents and late-round picks on rookie deals to fill much of the second and third string. When those stars played poorly or got injured, the backups would be forced into starting roles, where they would be abysmal. Ask a Cowboys fan about Jeff Heath sometime.
n a league where finding marginal value is critical to team success, the Steelers have strangely cultivated a veteran middle class. Players like Brett Keisel, Larry Foote, Casey Hampton, and Levi Brown1 have occupied meaningful cap space in recent years without delivering distinguished levels of play. Every team has a player or two like this, but the Steelers have had more than most the past few seasons.
Most notably, the Steelers invested heavily in a pair of veteran defensive backs who have not delivered on their deals. In 2011, the Steelers gave 30-year-old Troy Polamalu and 31-year-old Ike Taylor new contracts, deals that locked each up through the 2014 campaign. Coming off of their Super Bowl loss to the Packers, Polamalu received a three-year, $29.6 million extension that left him one of the highest-paid safeties in football, while Taylor’s four-year, $28 million deal left him paid just below the level of top cornerbacks. The Steelers had fielded the league’s top defense in 2010 and surely expected Polamalu and Taylor to be the cornerstones of that defense through the better chunk of their new deals.
Since then, the defense somehow keeps getting worse while staying the same age.
Cornerback charting stats are shots in the dark at best, but Taylor’s numbers have gotten horrible, and they’re matched by how he looks on tape. LeBeau has asked a lot of Taylor in the past in terms of covering the other team’s top wideout, but Taylor no longer has that ability. Per Football Outsiders, Taylor was targeted more than any cornerback in football besides Cary Williams last year. Opposing offenses averaged 8.9 adjusted yards per throw in Taylor’s direction last year, the third-worst figure for any cornerback in football.
