This ain’t the regular version of Friday Field Trip because there is just too much stuff going on with free agency.
A few big Steeler pieces of free agency news today: Guard Chris Kemoeatu signed a 5-year, $20 million deal ending the guard crisis on the Steelers following the release of Kendall Simmons. Norm and I were never big fans of Kemoeatu, but, at least for the immediate future, who else are the Steelers going to turn to? Draft picks are hit or miss and can’t be counted on to be starters read away. Kemoeatu was actually regarded as one of the better guards available via free agency. So I guess we’re stuck watching him turn around and try to chase down his assignment for a few more seasons.
Kemoeatu wasn’t the Steelers only signing on Friday. FB/TE hybrid Sean McHugh signed a 3-year, $2.57 million deal. Not sure why McHugh and Carey Davis are both still on the roster, but I suppose you need depth. McHugh had overtaken Davis as the main fullback towards the end of the season and did a pretty nice job.
All is still mostly quiet on the Bryant McFadden and Nate Washington fronts. Peter King said the Lions are the leader for McFadden’s services though. Mike Florio disagrees. So basically, nobody knows anything and he could go anywhere.
The Steelers usually aren’t a big player for the major free agents, but they’ve got room to sign a few mid-level guys if they want. Assuming Washington leaves, the Stees will want to bring in a veteran WR at least. The list of free agent pass catchers has a few intruiging names. The Jags Reggie Williams is still pretty young, but might cost too much and really isn’t much of a different player than Nate. Lance Moore from NO is interesting too. He caught 79 balls in a pass happy offense and is only 25. Keep your eyes open on the WR front.
But the big NFL news of the day was Washington signing DT Albert Haynesworth for something crazy like $100 million. The one thing I’ve learned over the years is that when Washington inks a big time free agent, you can bank on whoever the signing either suffereng a major injury or playing terrible football in the next few seasons. Dan Snyder wastes money like nobody else in the NFL and I’m sure this deal won’t have quite the impact that Skins fans are counting on.
Oh, and Kellen Winslow and Bart Scott moved out of the division. Good riddance. The only sad part is that the divisional games will lose a little bit of that circus atmosphere that these clowns brought to the stage.
