The Steelers Will Always Find A New Star
Though as I write this JuJu hasn’t actually signed anywhere yet, meaning there is still a very small chance I am soon revealed to be booboo the fool, he has informed his Steelers teammates he plans to sign elseware and becomes the latest in a long line of Steelers #1 WRs who left Pittsburgh at their peak to go squander their talents somewhere else.
EDIT: Juju you fuck
First up: Santonio Holmes. Legend. Etched his name in football lore with arguably the greatest toe tap TD in NFL history to win Super Bowl 43. However, he had a little legal trouble and the Steelers, well known for their strong morals on crimes other than rape, shipped him to the New York Jets in 2010 for a measly 5th round pick (which in turn eventually turned into another pick, which became Antonio Brown). Holmes played alright for the Jets during their strong Sanchez years, but never lived up to that hype.
The Steelers didn’t miss him, because now they had Mike Wallace. Drafted in 2009, now it was his time to shine. Shine he did. Mike Wallace was pretty good, and anyone from that time might remember the Mike Wallace hype train. He helped lead the team to Super Bowl 45 and then he decided to hold out for a new contract. He did not get it, became a free agent, and left. Mike Wallace was never very good again.
The Steelers did not miss him. They had Emmanuel Sanders and Antonio Brown. Sanders left for the Broncos in free agency in the mid-2000’s but the Steelers were fine letting him go because Antonio Brown was becoming Antonio Brown. Brown was quiet and exemplary. He was the opposite of these needy divas like Holmes or Wallace. Brown was a good boy, set on being the best boy. You could tell the Steelers thought differently of Brown, because they actually paid the guy to have him stick around.
At least, until he turned into the worst diva of all time and demanded more money, then a trade, and left Pittsburgh in a frustrated hole. It was okay though, because now they had JuJu Smith-Schuster, who was rapidly approaching Brown’s abilities without any of the drama! Juju was great! Then he started dancing on the logos of other teams, cursing them all, and has said he will leave in free agency.
Will the Steelers miss him? Probably not, because now they have Chase Claypool. I don’t know how the fuck Pittsburgh keeps doing this. Does Ben deserve all the credit for these studs? He probably deserves some of it, but this is really weird. The Steelers have casually drafted all these dudes in the 2nd round and below (except Holmes, a 1st rounder) and they would be the main piece of most other teams over the time span that they existed as a Yinzer. They keep pulling these #1 WR talents out of a damn hat. I would take Chase Claypool over anyone currently on the Giants. I would take any of these guys over any of the WRs the Giants have drafted in the past decade except OBJ. How do the Steelers keep doing this?
I look forward to when Chase inevitably turns into a dipshit (he kind of already is) and goes somewhere else to wallow in mediocrity while Pittsburgh replaces him with some doofus from the 4th round who catches 9 touchdowns and 1400 yards.
Don’t do Emmanuel Sanders dirty like that, he went to Denver and became our most reliable wideout after Demaryius Thomas started dipping his gloves in butter before every game.
Plus he got a ring five years before AB did.
I’m glad you mentioned Emmanuel Sanders even if he didn’t rate a panel. His biggest challenge was finding a position to play in the scheme alongside Wallace and AB. I feel like James Washington suffers from the same problem, where he does the same things well that Juju does, but there’s no room for both on the field at the same time.
I’m hoping Juju gets a chance to shine with an experienced and healthy QB, instead of the disaster that was 2019 and being forced to play security blanket in 2020 so Claypool and DJ can focus on what they do well. Everyone has been down on him since 2018 ended, and he continues to be one of my favorite players on and off the field.
*Ahem* You forgot about Burress. Went to the Giants, predicted the Super Bowl score, got mocked by Tom Brady for it, and then was nearly perfect in his prediction and caught the game winning TD, which was the same ball Tyree pinned against his head. Then shot himself and off to prison, whereupon release, he faced his true punishment – playing for the Jets. *shudders*
I always forget Plaxico was a Steeler early in his career.
Burress’ work with the Giants definitely contradicted the trend.
Fun story. After Burress joined the Jets I was on a work related tour of the recently closed medium security correctional facility with a co-worker who was a big Jets fan. We passed by the cell Burress had been in, and out of curiosity my co-worker wanted to check it out and accidentally got locked in. They had to call downstairs to unlock him electronically.
The same facility had also housed Ja Rule during the late 00s. Ja Rule became friends there with the former NYS Comptroller and the former CEO of MCI who apparently both encouraged him to go back to college.
I purposefully left Burress off the list because he was a Bill Cowher era guy and he was actually better for us than he was for the Steelers in many regards
I also left Hines Ward off the list because he was the one guy the Steelers did right by and stayed
Thinking about it, Burress might be the best free agent signing the Giants ever made. Even with his hilarious disaster flameout, he was Eli’s man for those early seasons and we don’t win in 2007 without him. I can’t think of a FA signing that made as much impact.
I wonder if we could have repeated had the guy not gotten himself into trouble and later accidentally shot himself.
Some teams are just really good at finding or developing talent at particular positions for some reason. Despite being as bad as they were for as long as they were, for whatever reason the Browns spent ten years grinding out Pro Bowl safeties like sausage. And now that they’re good they can’t find a safety to save their life. Ce la vie I suppose.
I can’t speak for others, but the Broncos have always had good to great linebackers and running backs.
LBs: Randy Gradishar, Tom Jackson, Simon Fletcher, Danny Trevathan, Von Miller, Bradley Chubb, Alexander Johnson, Romo (barf)
RBs: Floyd Little, Otis Armstrong, Sammy Winder, TD, Mike Anderson, Knowshon Moreno, CJ Anderson, Phillip Lindsay
Oh, and forgot about Clinton Portis. Talk about an embarrassment of riches.
The Ravens also seem to just find secondary pass rushers. Jarrett Johnson, Paul Kruger, Arthur Jones, Pernell McPhee, Za’Darius Smith, Matt Judon, Tyus Bowser, Jihad Ward, just since 2011.
Winder wasn’t really good though.
Don’t forget the Browns ability to pump out some of the best O linemen in the league as of late. Off the top of my head I can name Joe Thomas, Michael Schwartz, Joel Bitonio, Alex Mack, Wyatt Teller, Kevin Zeitler, and Jack Conklin (Yes he was good with the Titans but he had his best season so far with the Browns).
On some ig account that makes NFL polls, the question was will juju stays or leave and Juju apparently voted leave. So I don’t know if it was real or not, but we’ll know soon.
As a Fins fan, I Fucking hate Mike Wallace. I’m sure he’s a good person off of the filed, but he was dogshit on it. Watch Miami waste $100 mil on JuJu
I would hope Grier learned not to pay Steelers receivers
We’re Miami; we never learn our lesson about free agents.
I get some teams having a knack for drafting a certain position well but I will never understand how or why the Steelers have always been so good at finding top-tier WR talent. You could legitimately argue that they’ve been doing this since the 70s with Stallworth and Swann but they’ve been especially good at it since the late 90s. Makes no sense.
Sometimes it is easy to forget that Antonio Brown was a 6th round draft pick.
It’s like the Steelers flip a coin and either get an absolute stud starter or a total whiff when they draft receivers early: James Washington, Sammie Coates, Dri Archer, Markus Wheaton, Limas Sweed, and Willie Reid are all misses over that same span.
That said, I’d take misses like those when you consider the hits!
You can’t disrespect Markus Wheaton when he had the most random 200 yard game of all time.
fact he is Canadian > diva wr urges
Personally, I hate how the Steelers do this. It’s annoying…
That’s kind of like the Packers, though minus the diva part, except for Jennings, though he wasn’t nearly as big a diva as Brown. Rodgers started with Jennings, as the #1, then they moved on and Nelson became the #1, and then they moved on and Adams became the #1. Rodgers has more TDs to 2nd round WRs than any QB with 201 TDs. It’s mind blowing he has only 3 completions and 1 TD to a 1st round WR.
In the time span this comic covers, the Patriots have not drafted a WR with more than 700 career receiving yards to his name…
The perfect antithesis to Pittsburgh. They can’t draft a WR for shit, but unlike the Steelers, they actually live up to expectations come postseason.
With their best pass catcher being a tight end.
Edelman.
Comic starts in 2010. Edelman was drafted in ’09
When you only throw 5 yards per play…
Idk why this “Juju is a diva” narrative is still alive. He’s not leaving the Steelers because he hates them, he’s leaving them because they’re broke.
The real diva in our WR room is Claypool.
Juju gets the diva tag because of his focus on social media. It’s going to happen when he’s dancing on team logos and reports are coming out about him wanting to go to a big market teams to grow his brand. Claypool is turning into one for sure though.
I think the Antonio Brown saga has poisoned JuJu’s public image. When Brown started going downhill, it started with the “selfish” social media nonsense like the time he recorded Tomlin’s locker room speech
Some teams just always seem to have strong players at certain positions. The Steelers have a history of strong WRs going back to Terry Bradshaw’s time. The Rams have had a wealth of strong RBs(Dickerson, Bettis, Faulk, Jackson, Gurley) I always associate Chicago with great linebackers. Until Luck retired the Colts were the team of Unitas, Manning and Luck.
and juju is back
Pissing Tree had high hopes for Juju.
As of 2023, Juju’s with the chiefs now. The Steelers did not miss him as they drafted George Pickens. Aka possible AB #2