The Steelers like to have three TE's at a time. For the past infinity of years that has meant Heath Miller, a #2 man, and a flexible #3 whose primary role is to be a jack of all trades combination of special teams stud, H-back, and emergency fullback. Now Heath is gone to the great green pastures of the rest of his life. So what are we fans to expect?
Matt Spaeth has, with a brief interlude, been Miller's co-star for the better part of a decade. He's been extremely solid as a #2. But does he have the stuff to take over as the #1 option? In a word, "No." Make no mistake: I'm a fan of Mr. Spaeth. I love the quiet contributors who add more to a team than a description of their skill set could explain. That's him to a T, which makes him a top-notch Steeler in my book. But being a fan doesn't make me blind. Spaeth has real limits when it comes to being a receiver. Plus when you're 32 years old (33 around Thanksgiving), with a decade of NFL play behind you, our future expectations have to include an asterisk in any event.
TheSteelers will be relying on Spaeth to maintain his own level of play and really ought to be thinking about his successor. He's not going to be the new #1.
Ladarius Green fills the receiving hole but I hesitate to give him too much credit too quickly. He's yet to show himself as a blocker and that is a more important role in Pittsburgh than it was in San Diego. A "receiving TE" is a role player for the Steelers, not the heir to Heath. I also worry a tiny bit about his inability to break out from Antonio Gates' obviously-enormous shadow. Yes, Gates is a future HOF'er; but if Green was 'all of that' San Diego would have spent a lot more time in two-TE sets, wouldn't they? Philip Rivers is a good enough QB that the Chargers can afford to put their best-11 on the field and be damned about normal ideas of positional balance. Thus it isn't only Gates that he failed to push out, it's also the wide receivers.
I don't mean to say this is a big worry. It's not, but it's enough for me to keep one foot on the ground instead of leaping completely onto the bandwagon.
The #3 guy for this year is likely to be Jesse James. This was a pick I loved in the 2015 draft because of his massive upside. He is the perfect example of Kevin Colbert's "let young but raw talents spend their senior year on our practice squad" approach. It is a good idea that has worked in the past, but we still don't know for sure if it worked in this particular case. How much of the local boy's enormous potential will come to fruition? It's one of the biggest story lines I'm looking forward to in training camp.
The signs and portents are good. I was particularly encouraged to hear about the ongoing competition between him and Anthony Chickillo in last year's practices. By all accounts those two were really pushing each other, and that bodes very well from the iron sharpening iron point of view! But there is a difference between hopeful Indicators and actual NFL performance.
Those are the clear top-3 for 2016. Spaeth will be a strong #2, but needs an heir. Green will be a good receiving and red-zone threat, but there are doubts about whether he can be a true #1. Jesse James undoubtedly can be a true #1, but he could also turn into a total bust, or a one-dimensional player like Spaeth or the San Diego version of Green. Xavier Grimble is the dark horse in the stable.
Grimble was drafted in 2014 by the Giants (a class organization) and then waived before his rookie season. The dysfunctional 49ers signed him to their 2014 practice squad, and then waived him for his second time just before the 2015 season. At that point the Steelers picked him up and got to see what he's like after the Sophomore Leap firsthand. Poster datruth4life2.0 offered this summary in a recent Comment:
Matt Williamson raved about him during his time at minicamp and the Steelers coaches and players have said a lot of good things about him dating back to him time last year on the practice squad. He really looks like a huge WR out there running routes rather than a 6’4’’, 261 lbs TE. I want to see if he cannot only catch when the pads and the lights are on, but if he can block and also play special teams.
That pretty much covers all I know as well. I suppose you can summarize it as, "The same things we hear about Jesse James but with a bit less pedigree and an extra year in the league." Will he make a comparable Year 3 leap and become a serious contender? Or will he hit the perpetual journeyman's plateau? From a purely Steelers point of view you also have to worry about Grimble's timing. He'd have to move mountains to beat out Spaeth, Green, or even James in 2016. They're all entrenched enough that it would take a combination of poor play on their part and great play on his to achieve real movement in the depth chart, and he may be out of eligibility (the rule says that players may stay on practice squads for only two years, but there are so many exceptions that a way may exist). So Grimble may well end up being the right man at the wrong time. It's entirely possible, and maybe even likely, that he's the exact guy we'd want to replace Matt Spaeth in 2017 but the team will lose him because Spaeth will still be around in 2016.
So, the bottom line is that the Steelers have a Tight End position staffed with a lot of good-looking question marks. The team ought to be safe and happy for 2016 with Spaeth as a blocker and Green as a receiver. That sharp dichotomy would telegraph the playbook a bit, but not so much as to make the position a weakness. The position could become an actual strength if either Ladarius Green or Jesse James blooms into his full potential. (Not that it would have a huge impact either way with all the other available weapons). And Xavier Grimble is there to push the others, with an outside, longshot's chance of taking over the #3 spot. Moving forward, we have to expect Matt Spaeth to follow his leader off into the sunset. Maybe it will be after this year. If not, it will odds-on be after the next. At that point the roster will have a definite hole. By the end of the year we ought to have a good idea of how big that hole will be, and whether the Steelers have the people in-house to do so.