Tim Benz: Steelers’ deadline acquisition of WR Mike Williams fits the mood of Election Day
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It’s fitting that the NFL trade deadline is on Election Day. I felt the same way leaving my local polling branch as I did when I saw who the Steelers were looking at to address their need at wide receiver.
Underwhelmed by the choices and unfulfilled by the process.
I’ll leave our political reporters to opine about the future of the White House and the state of democracy. Regarding the Steelers’ wide receiver room, though, with Tuesday’s addition of Mike Williams from the New York Jets, the best I can say is that it got a slight upgrade. He provides size outside the numbers and some depth in case George Pickens gets hurt.
In political terms, even with the additional acquisition of edge rusher Preston Smith from the Green Bay Packers, the Steelers didn’t exactly flip a swing state Tuesday. They merely buffered their position in the battleground of the AFC.
If healthy (and that’s a big if, given some of the back and knee issues he has endured throughout his career), the 6-foot-4, 218-pound Williams can add a deep threat with size to coordinator Arthur Smith’s passing attack. The concern is that, after joining the Jets this offseason, Williams did next to nothing in New York with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. The 30-year-old Williams had just 12 catches for 166 yards and no touchdowns.
Granted, Williams was playing behind other wide receivers such as Garrett Wilson, Allen Lazard and, eventually, Davante Adams. But, pardon me if I’m not planning the Super Bowl parade in Pittsburgh because the Steelers just got the Jets’ fourth-best wideout.
It feels to me that adding Williams is little more than saving face for Steelers general manager Omar Khan. The organization has had multiple swings and misses while attempting to backfill the position after trading away Diontae Johnson in March.
Since the spring, the Steelers had been linked to rumored conversations with clubs for every wide receiver from Adams to Cooper Kupp, to Christian Kirk, to Darius Slayton, to Adam Thielen, to Courtland Sutton and more. Most notably, the organization couldn’t work out a trade-and-sign with San Francisco for Brandon Aiyuk in August.
People were even wondering if the Steelers might try to reacquire Johnson from Carolina until the whole world found out that wasn’t allowed according to NFL rules.
The recent narrative about Kirk is my favorite one. Over the weekend, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the Steelers “were in the process of trying to get a deal done” for Kirk, and that “there was a reasonable chance that the Jaguars wide receiver was going to wind up in Pittsburgh” until he broke his collarbone Oct. 27.
Sure they were. Of course they were.
Oh, those poor star-crossed Steelers! They were right on the cusp of getting a receiver until the cruel football gods intervened and Kirk suffered a season-ending injury.
Pfft! Please. If the Steelers really wanted Kirk and preferred him to Williams, then he would’ve been here two weeks ago.
That feels like a fluffed-up, leaked-out version of what was probably happening in an effort to make it sound like the Steelers were going to more adequately address their self-created hole at the position until bad luck got in the way.
I have no doubt Schefter is right, and conversations were going on between Pittsburgh and Jacksonville. But if talks were as close as we are being led to believe, why was Kirk playing for the 2-6 Jaguars that day? Why wasn’t he being scratched with some made-up injury like Johnson was before he was eventually dealt to Baltimore, or as Adams was for weeks in Las Vegas before his trade to New York?
Probably because the Steelers and Jags were still negotiating and posturing over mid-round draft compensation.
Well, now Kirk is stuck on Jacksonville’s injured-reserve list, and the Steelers had to settle for a guy the Jets wanted to keep for barely half a season.
Not exactly landscape-altering stuff at the midway point of the season.
Getting Williams is better than nothing. He still might have the body type and speed to offset any potential short-term injury to Pickens. He also could allow Pickens to become a greater threat in other parts of the field more often than just a preponderance of deep shots down the sidelines.
The Johnson-for-Donte Jackson trade looks great for Khan when evaluated based solely on the original swap with the Panthers. Unfortunately for Khan, however, if Johnson significantly helps the Ravens and Williams is nothing but marginal in Pittsburgh, those opinions will change.
Mike Williams isn’t the candidate most of us wanted, but now he is the one we’ve got to back.
Feel familiar?