I find it amusing that so many are harping on Spence's bench reps when I still can't find any reps for what Hightower did?

What was Hightower hiding from? Did he PURPOSELY not do the bench so that HIS stock wouldn't take a hit?

I think this all comes down to some people loved Hightower and thought he was a perfect fit so when the Steelers go in a totally different direction at ILB they can't handle it. I never liked Hightower and thought he was a bad fit. Spence makes more sense and I love the pick.

In three years I think Hightower may join the busts that Belichick has accumulated over the past 3 or 4 years, whereas Spence will end up the better player.

Name a starting OLB for the Steelers in the last decade that didn't get voted to at least one Pro Bowl... The bar for OLB's is very fucking high, regardless of your draft position.

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If a guy posts on a bulletin board service, and nobody reads it, did he have anything to say?

Well, since you asked, Clark Haggans.

But I do see your point, if you look at not just OLB but also ILB, we don't seem to have any problem drafting and developing LBers for our system. I had made a post a couple months back about the lineage of our ILBers the past 25 years, but hey I will go into detail about both inside and out.

Now this is just off the top of my head. But remember the great players from the 70s, the great LBers, Ham, Lambert? They got old and retired, with Lambert it was perhaps a bit premature with the damn turf toe injury. We had already drafted their replacements in Bryan Hinkle and David Little as 6th and 7th rounders in 81 and Mike Merriweather in the 3rd round of 1982. The lone holdover was Robin Cole.

In the mid-late 80s this quartet was very good. Merriweather made the Pro Bowl 3 times and had one season where he had 15 sacks. We traded him to Minnesota in 89 for a first rounder. Bryan Hinkle was a very underrated OLB who was an alternate to the Pro Bowl one year but I always thought he was the more consistent, clutch OLB in comparison to Merriweather. He played at 220 lbs and my most memorable play for him was the interception against the 49ers late that gave us the opportunity for a late FG to give the 49ers there only loss for the year in 1984. David Little and Robin Cole both made the Pro Bowl once.

When that group was getting long in the tooth or traded away, or retired, there was always a player in waiting. Merriweather was expendable because we drafted Greg Lloyd in 1987 in the 6th round. A round earlier we drafted Hardy Nickerson. So, we had a replacement for Merriweather and for Robin Cole at ILB. Nickerson would leave for TB and played in Pro Bowls for them. Hinkle would leave and we signed Kevin Greene to play OLB. David Little would retire and we had already drafted Levon Kirkland and Chad Brown. Greene would leave as a free agent and we had Jason Gildon to replace him.

We had a bit of a dry patch in the late 90s but I think that had more to do with the turnover at DC. We went from Capers to LeBeau to Hastlet to Tim Lewis and then back to LeBeau in 2004. There were many good/great LBers that never got a chance to show what they could do, like Mike Vrabel and to a lesser extent Carlos Emmons. Emmons went on to play for Philly and the Giants and was an alternate once or twice for the Pro Bowl. The overall talent of the remaining LBers was sort of blah, Earl Holmes being probably the best inside as Kirkland just really went downhill fast with his weight.

Of course we soon snapped out of the funk and drafted Joey Porter, Kendrell Bell, signed Jamer Farrior and later would bring on James Harrison, Lamar Woodley and Lawrence Timmons.

So, if you count the number of LBers that we have drafted that have gone on to be Pro Bowlers or alternates in the past 30 years it is impressive.

Go all the way back to the 80s and you see:

Lambert
Merriweather
Hinkle (alternate)
Cole
Little
Lloyd
Nickerson (with TB)
Greene (signed as free agent)
Brown
Kirkland
Porter
Bell
Farrior (signed as free agent)
Vrabel (with NE)
Emmons (alternate with Giants)
Harrison (UDFA)
Woodley

That is 17 LBers in the last 30 years or so. But one of my issues is that it seems like whenever we sign a LBer to a big contract extension, they immediately cool off and become almost like an albatross. Witness Greg Lloyd, or Levon Kirkland. How about Jason Gildon? Now we have 3 LBers that all make over $50 million. Harrison and Woodley missed 11 games combined last season. People are disappointed with Timmons.

I just wish we would get back to squeezing as much out of a LBer early and then let them go when the money gets to be too much. We used to be very good at always having an heir apparent ready but now, not so much.

Even so- wasn't Timmons a Pro Bowler when Farrior was a little faster and Hampton was healthy? I'm not saying that Timmons is without flaws, but, I've been flogging the dead horse that we needed to shore up the middle of the defense since last training camp.

The one thing I didn't see in this draft that I was hoping to see was a legitimately fast addition at ILB or S- no questions about their speed and quicks.

Maybe Spence IS that guy- there are enough favorable opinions here I'll give him the benefit of the doubt I guess.

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If a guy posts on a bulletin board service, and nobody reads it, did he have anything to say?

interesting, Keith Butler kind of likes him



http://www.steelers.com/news/article-1/ ... 69eda3e6cc

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Colbert on the #Steelers RB situation: "Where we were in running game last year was indicative in the talent at the position.''

Timmons has all the talent in the world... I'm confident he'll step it up this year.