The Steelers have gone through a shit ton of RBs over the last couple seasons. They've had some promising names in that span too (Bell, Mendenhall, etc) but have been ravaged by injuries. The Giants have a good one in Andre Brown but he got bit by the injury bug. The Ravens have Rice and the Falcons brought in Stephen Jackson.

I think those teams have been trying.

Bullshit. 100% pure bullshit.

In this day in age, there's simply no excuse for not walking into the season with two good running back options. They're not hard to find. The Steelers have twice tried to make things work with Jonathan Dwyer, a RB so bad that he was cut and nobody picked him up. And even in terms of the first effort, a washed out Steven Jackson, Brown, and Bell... those aren't names that exactly pop off the page.

You saw what a night and day difference Laveon Bell made for the Steelers. And he's not even all-world. If your team has a game manager, it should be common sense that running back should be one of your top priorities, and it's not a hard position to find.

I agree. I actually think I'd be more likely to invest in offensive line help these days though. I don't think it's a coincidence that all of those teams had line issues save for the Ravens, but that's probably just because Ray Rice sucks and Caldwell is an unimaginative play caller.

Plus running backs just aren't as valuable as they once were and these days you can find pretty good ones in later rounds. Take the Vermeil approach and you could practically put anybody back there (assuming you just want him to run the ball, of course).

I couldn't believe how many people supported that signing.

I was astonished we signed him at all and when I saw it was for 3 years I was like "ok, that's a HUGE red flag"

The guy was DONE his whole last year in Atlanta...I don't know what tape these guys watched of his to think he deserved that deal...or any deal at all for that matter.

If we didnt sign him (and give him a 3 million dollar bonus, which pushes dead money to this upcoming year) we would have 5.5 million of addition cap space for 2014... by cutting him we only clear up 3.3 million.

Dude STOLE almost 5 million dollars.

I just wish people realized the gap between terrible and elite is big and wide. There are only a handful of truly elite quarterbacks in the NFL.

Maybe 4?

Brady
Rodgers
Brees
Peyton
Luck

Gap

Rothlisberger
Rivers
Ryan
Romo
Wilson

Gap

Newton
Dalton
Foles
Eli
Smith
Cutler
Flacco

Gap

Stafford
RG3
Kaepernick
Tannehill


That's how I see the quarterbacks being currently grouped.

I'd like to add that it's entirely possible that Alex Smith plays himself into the second group next year, but he isn't there yet.

No way Luck is elite at this moment in time.

Lack of love for the game managers. Big Ben is in that upper tier, and he will be now that he has a legit running game. I'd gladly take Eli over Luck (if age wasn't an issue).

It's the 4th quarter in a close playoff game. Which QB do you turn to? I can assure you that Big Ben and Eli are really high on my list, and Aaron Rodgers is not nearly as high up as you'd expect.

Yep.

ROFL

Baby.

Define elite.

Consistently able to elevate the level of (offensive) play around them and score enough points to win.

Example: I would consider the performance of Smith in our PO game as elite but I wouldn't consider him an elite QB.

If he were able to make those throws and decisions on a consistent basis he would be elite...

Luck turns it over and makes too many bad decisions for me to put him in that class just yet