Steelers Burning Question: Are the Steelers cheap?
Last season I did the Friday Night Steelers Six Pack and wondered if it was worth doing further. After all, interaction was not great, and sometimes you just have to adjust. So I decided to call an audible, and not just abandon the Friday night meeting of the black-and-gold minds.
Instead of six questions, I wanted to focus solely on one question.
We’ll still do the preamble of what you’re eating/drinking/listening to, but we’ll focus our attention on the one Steelers question of the week. Don’t worry, most weeks I’ll do a bonus/extra credit question for fun. With all that out of the way, let’s get to the question!
I have to ask that if when George Pickens called the Steelers organization cheap, was he wrong? In Pickens comment, which has since been deleted, he hinted at the team being cheap in paying players, stating they never want to stack years.
To that, I disagree. The Steelers aren’t rolling over massive amounts of salary cap space year after year. Instead, they typically pay up to the cap year-in and year-out.
As for the facilities, there might be a something to Pickens’ comments. The fact the team didn’t have some basic amenities like a sauna and steam room was certainly telling. You can have an older facility, and you can even share a facility, but it can be filled with the best of the best in this regard.
It’s a tough question to answer considering we don’t truly know what the Steelers do, and don’t, spend money on, but the roster certainly isn’t one of them. For that, we truly do know how much they spend on a yearly basis.
What say you?
As for what I’m eating, it’s shredded beef with twice baked potatoes with salad. As for drink, it’s always store bought kombucha, as usual, and the tunes will be our youngest daughter’s favorite artist, Kacey Musgraves, on vinyl!
Happy Friday everyone!!
I am truly going to shock some folks today. The GFJ at my local Sun King was not working so today I enjoyed a couple Keller Haze’s (which was not very hazy, which is a good thing in my book). I’ll figure out what I’m going to finish out my “beer Friday with later. Dinner may, or may not be a nice steak dinner at a local top shelf steak restaurant. TBD
As far as, are the Steelers cheap? Absolutely not. First bit of evidence is that they spend right up to the salary cap every year. Second piece of evidence is that they are not afraid to sign their most important and impactful players to top dollar contracts when they’re due. To me, those two things point to an organization that does it the right way. But that’s just me maybe?
Enjoy your Friday y’all!!
I blame Najee Harris, after he viewed the new-this-year Chargers’ facility, and human nature. SY sums the rest of my thoughts up nicely, above, although we’re having gyros. No adult beverage today, want to stunt my growth a bit.
Just not much room on the South Side and Steelers share space with Pitt. Would require new real estate, most likely, to expand facilities. New equipment, more likable trainers and nutritionists…maybe these are doable?
No SY no! No no no. I don’t know what to believe in right now….I’m not sure how to proceed. Will the sun come up tomorrow?? I just can’t know.
Seriously though, just think how good the next GFJ is gonna be! It’ll be almost like the first time.
Okay. I learned about GFJ. Probably too fancy for me, they sound interesting, though.
Come on mattcatt, believe in yourself, you’re fancy enough. I haven’t had one yet either, but I will. Ohhhh I will indeed.
Heck, you both meet me in Indy and I’M buying! Let’s go!
Thank you for a kind thought, JoeB
.
SY got you Matt. I’ll buy!
Thank you for a kind offer.
I’m already looking forward to it! Although, I did buy a couple 4-pack of 16 ouncers of a collab between Sun King and Three Floyds Brewing — called Fourth Rider of Light IPA. A nice hardy & hoppy 8.6 ABV. Right up my alley. It will do nicely for a suitable substitute this week…
I said this elsewhere, so I won’t rehash all, but I think you nail it above — the Steelers (apparently) don’t have top level facilities — and maybe they need to step up their game in that area, but they aren’t averse to “stacking [unprintable word]s,” and paying them, they just got fed up with an undisciplined, immature player and it hurt his feelings, so he lashed out. Like a child. Absolutely on brand.
As to beverage and dinner – wife is out of town and the teenagers have other plans, so I’m eating whatever’s left in the fridge and washing it down with a Guinness. And a Bitburger. And maybe another one, we’ll see. Cheers!
This — they aren’t averse to “stacking [unprintable word]s,” — was a beautiful piece of literary work, Grinch! Well done. Cheers to you as well!
Why thank you, and cheers to you, too!
The NFLPA-polled Steelers disliked: treatment of families (@ games), nutritionist (personalized plans lacking), locker room size, training room size and equipment, the staff w/the new trainer from BC (and number of staff), away travel, and ARII, the most in ’24. Wow.
Drinking Sierra Nevada Cosmic little thing hazy double IPA. Pretty nice. More fruits and citrus flavors than alcohol you’d expect from a double, but it is only 8% so I guess that’s how they got the nice balance.
Ate mac and cheese covered in barbecued pulled pork with a fist full of spring onions. Very good.
No music, watching the Unbelievable with Dan Aykroyd.
Are the Steelers cheap? I posted my thoughts on this already. Player contracts? Always spending at, and for many years, beyond the cap says no. How can you argue?
Facilities and staff? Among the smallest staff, lacking amenities rather suffer an innefective coach till his contract is up than fire them. Bad reviews from their own players. Yes. Sure looks cheap to me.
Ouch…I forgot the ineffective coach…my bad.
Fair enough. On the coach, it’s possible that misplaced loyalty or inaccurate personnel evaluation (of said coach) rather than cheapness drove the thinking, but no way to know from the outside.
On the cheap issue I think one small point needs to be made. I think it’s plausible they were last year with WR. I wonder if the Aiyuk situation yielded Metcalf. It seemed they were more aggressive financially this year, and I wonder if losing Aiyuk last year was a “learning moment” for Khan et al.
I agree with all else who stated so here that facility and coaching yield the “cheap” moniker- and likely rightly so. Player contracts are year to year and athlete dependent while abiding with both the cap and floor. There’s only so “cheap” any owner can be given the rules.
But facility and coaching are real indicators of an owner’s personal desire to invest. I, personally, believe maximizing such investments indicates a level of care and personal concern for your players, and I don’t blame players for vocalizing the lack of investment. Rooney is a billionaire and any investment he makes in the physical property returns appreciated value to his asset. He can hire engineers, design and build facilities and spend 50-75 million without even thinking about it. He could even pressure the “non profit” University of Pitt to participate- or kick them out and tell them to build their own facility. They are absolutely capable of doing so as evidenced by the umpteen enhancements they are continuously making to the Petersen.
Money is not the issue to move the Steeles into the 21st century- but the will definitely seems to be.
I think that’s a more than fair assessment Vinny.
However, based on everything I’ve ever read, the Rooney’s are one of the “poorest” team owners in the NFL. While they are “billionaires” because they own a franchise worth multiple billions, they (apparently) are very cash poor billionaires. Being just a “thousandaire” myself, I must assume that while borrowing would be easier for a billionaire, paying (ca$h money!) is no different than it would be for me. It’s easy to forget, as fans of this team that want the best for our team — in every regard — that OUR owner is a billionaire because he owns an NFL franchise. Many/Most owners were billionaires/multi-millionaires FIRST and then became owners.
I’m not trying to make excuses for the Rooney’s. I TOO want the Steelers to be THE prime example of class and quality in every aspect. But there is plenty of validity in being a billionaire without sufficient liquidity…
a true Pittsburgh Steelers fan, since the 70’s no! because Arthur Joseph Rooney Sr. believe in building the team through the N.F.L. draft hold on to your draft picks and don’t over spend and it works look at the Cleveland Browns, Arizona Cardinals, New York Jets, Denver Broncos those teams had to over spend on a quarterback and give up a lot of draft picks and now those teams will have to start all over and still paying those quarterback they don’t want