What route will Steelers take at TE?
Free agency or trade seems logical again to address lack of production
In an attempt to rebuild the tight end position after Heath Miller retired, the Steelers have traded for two players and signed another to a big contract in free agency. They are in position, and something of a desperate one at that, to go that route again.
The inability of Vance McDonald to stay healthy for an entire season, coupled with a lot of uncertainty behind him, has the Steelers considering a move to sign a tight end in free agency or use a high pick to draft one in April.
Because of a lack of high draft choices — as of right now, the Steelers have no first- or third-round picks — and because it is never a deep draft for college tight ends, general manager Kevin Colbert and coach Mike Tomlin could decide to address the position when the free-agent signing period begins March 18 (teams are allowed to begin negotiations with agents of unrestricted free agents two days prior).
Then again, the Steelers might decide to re-sign backup Nick Vannett, an unrestricted free agent who was obtained in a trade at the beginning of the 2019 season, wait for Zach Gentry to develop after a quiet rookie season and hope McDonald can stay healthy.
“When Vance is healthy, he’s a quality NFL starter,” Colbert said. “Nick Vannett is an unrestricted free agent and we hope we can find a way to keep Nick in the mix. And I think Zach will only get better. Zach got better and better as the year went on and did what he needed to do. He’s still someone we think can still be an NFL-caliber tight end.”
That is a lot of wishful thinking for the position, and one of the reasons the Steelers can’t afford to stand pat and not bring in another tight end to pair with McDonald, or possibly even replace him.
Third in a 2020 offseason series breaking down the roster position by position.
McDonald is scheduled to earn $5.5 million in base salary and count $7,127,500 against the salary cap in 2020, according to overthecap.com, a website that tracks NFL player salaries. If they decided to release him, he would count just $1,455,000 against the cap.
McDonald, who will be 30 in June, has played in 39 games since the Steelers acquired him from the San Francisco 49ers for a fourthround draft choice in 2017. He has shown flashes of being the type of tight end capable of highlight-film plays — he had 50 catches for 610 yards and four touchdowns in 2018 — but his inability to stay healthy has made him unreliable. He had 38 catches for only 273 yards and two touchdowns last season.
“Vance was not unlike some of the other guys who got nicked up and missed some time,” Colbert said. “When he’s healthy he’s been a productive NFL starter.
“When [players] are hurt and they can’t go, they can’t go. We never question that. Sometimes they play when they’re not 100%. In the course of an NFL season, a majority of NFL players aren’t 100%. But when he’s healthy, he’s a quality NFL starter.”
As of right now, there appear to be several options in free agency. Hunter Henry, a former No. 2 draft choice of the Chargers in 2016, is one of the top tight ends on the freeagent market. The other is Atlanta’s Austin Hooper, a third-round choice in 2016. Both are unrestricted free agents who could re-sign with their current team. Both should command a premium price on the open market.
The Steelers would have to come up with a contract even more than what they paid in 2016 to get Ladarius Green in free agency ($20 million for four years) to sign one of those players.
Eric Ebron of the Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati’s Tyler Eifert also are expected to be free agents, but Ebron has a reputation for bad hands and Eifert is injured more often than McDonald. He has played in just 30 games the past four seasons. Greg Olsen, a former three-time Pro Bowler with the Carolina Panthers, is already off the market after signing a one-year, $7 million contract Tuesday with the Seattle Seahawks.
How important is the tight end position in the NFL? Significant enough that both Super Bowl participants had two of the best in the business — Kansas City’s Travis Kelce and San Francisco’s George Kittle.
But it also has been important for the Steelers because of their historical reliance on using two tight ends in a lot of their offensive schemes. But the number of snaps for tight ends has dwindled each of the past three seasons — and dropped drastically in 2019.
When Miller played his final season in 2015, the Steelers used three tight ends (Miller, Matt Spaeth and Jesse James) for a total of 1,346 snaps. That number rose to 1,451 snaps in 2016 with four tight ends (James, Green, David Johnson and Xavier Grimble).
Based on the total number of offensive snaps in 2015 (1,011) and 2016 (1,026), that means the Steelers used at least two tight ends 33.1% of the time in 2015 and 43.3% of the time in 2016.
Since then, though, the Steelers have relied less and less on their multiple tight end formations. Tight ends appeared for 1,340 snaps in 2017, 1,300 snaps in 2018 and only 824 snaps last season when they struggled to find a tight end to complement McDonald. That means they used at least two tight ends 27.4% of the time in 2017, 22.8% in 2018 and a staggering low 12% of the time last season.
That might be one of the other reasons for the decline in the running game. The Steelers always have used a lot of two, and sometimes even three, tight ends in their formations under offensive coordinators Bruce Arians and Todd Haley. Not anymore.
That needs to change for the Steelers. And it could happen before the draft — again.