Needing to bolster WR depth, expert believes Steelers need to exchange for 2022 first-round
The Pittsburgh Steelers lost two key pieces of their passing recreation for the duration of the offseason after trading receiver Diontae Johnson to the Carolina Panthers and letting Allen Robinson stroll in free agency.
While the team signed veterans Van Jefferson, Marquez Callaway and Quez Watkins and selected Roman Wilson in the third round of the 2024 draft, there’s nevertheless a glaring gap in Pittsburgh’s WR corps.
Which is why ESPN’s Bill Barnwell believes they should trade for Tennessee Titans wideout Treylon Burks, a former first-round select who’s presumably looking for a trade of scenery after the group introduced Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd in the offseason
While Barnwell’s alternate premise makes perfect sense, he’s short-changing both Burks and the Titans in his proposal.
Pittsburgh has a little over $18M in cap space, so there would be no want for the Titans to eat any of Burks’ salary, and a sixth-round select two years from now is an tremendously low return for a player two years removed from being drafted 18th overall.
If anything, the Steelers are the greater desperate group to pull off the exchange after dropping nearly 27% of their total receptions, 30% of their receiving yards and 38% of their touchdown receptions from a season in the past with the departures of Johnson and Robinson.
Although Burks has had an uneven performance at some point of his first two seasons, he’s additionally dealt with allergies and battled several injuries, and he’s had to deal with the instability in Tennessee that got here with catching passes from four one of a kind quarterbacks underneath two one-of-a-kind offensive coordinators
The 24-year-old confirmed promise at some point of his rookie season in which he had 33 receptions on fifty four targets, 444 yards and a touchdown, however injuries confined him to 11 video games ultimate season and the Titans’ questionable strength and conditioning application probable didn’t help.
Although Burks’ time with the Titans didn’t overlap with Arthur Smith, if there’s all of us who can maximize his talent, it’s the Steelers offensive coordinator. As the Titans OC, Smith coached A.J. Brown to back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons and 19 whole touchdowns during his first two years in the league.
