Pittsburgh Media Says Hightower "Did the Steelers a Favor"
@jerrythornton1 this is the best, he calls Timmons one of the best but Hightower is over rated https://t.co/gm6ESqZfxX
— Vic Vinegar (@mleite33) March 15, 2017
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – Dont’a Hightower and the New England Patriots did the Steelers a favor when they came to terms Wednesday on a reported four-year, $43.5 million contract.
With crying needs at outside linebacker, cornerback, wide receiver and backup running back, the Steelers set their sights on Hightower, a big-name free agent who would have filled none of those holes. …
Hightower is overrated and overhyped, partly because he made two key plays to help the Patriots win two Super Bowls, partly because he was a first-round draft pick and partly, well, because he played in New England.
But if he was so valuable to the Patriots, why didn’t they sign him to an extension last year, and why did they let him test free agency?
Hightower is an inside linebacker, and … with Ryan Shazier and Vince Williams, they still seemed to be set at their inside starters for 2017.
Would Hightower been an improvement over Williams? Maybe, but maybe not much.
Sometime it might be worth it to do a ranking of the most delusional, grabassing, suckup sports media markets. Which I’ll probably never get around to because I’m too busy furiously masturbating over the Patriots virtually perfect offseason. But if I do ever put together brackets, I’m making the Pittsburgh Steelers media a 1-seed.
When they’re not defending Ben Rapistburger, making excuses for the Steelers’ utter inability to make adjustments in the playoffs or telling ghost stories about pretend helmet radio jamming systems and bugged locker rooms, they’re dropping steaming turds like this to justify their beloved teams’ failure to close the gap with the Patriots.
Seriously, it’s amazing how much wrong you can fit into so few sentences. If a sports column was Cap’n Crunch and wrong was a Crunchberry, this article would be a box of Oops! All Berries. For starters, the claim that there’s a defense anywhere on the planet that has no use for a Dont’a Hightower is laughable. If Keith Butler can’t make use of versatile, 270 lb, 3-down linebacker who can play off the line, on the edge or on the line of scrimmage shooting gaps, he should be fired on the spot.
Second, “overrated and overhyped” because all he’s done is win Super Bowls is just more of the same “product of the system” bullshit we’ve been hearing about Tom Brady for the last 16 years. And Pittsburgh doesn’t have to take my word for it. At the start of free agency, ESPN did a segment where they had Merrill Hoge and Tedy Bruschi moving all the top players through brackets. Hightower was their No. 1, over A.J. Bouye. Their pick, not mine.
But the best part by far is the idea that Hightower is only a marginal upgrade over Vince Williams Vince fucking Williams. A sixth round backup with 32 tackles last year. And a guy they locked up for the whopping total of $5.5 million over three years. Right. They’re practically twins. Let’s go, Pittburgh; now you’re not even trying.
And to answer why the Patriots let Hightower test free agency? To test the market. So Hightower could check to see if there’s one team out there willing to give him a chance to win a third ring and way outbid the Patriots. And there wasn’t anyone smart enough to offer him either. So the already massive gap between the Patriots and the rest of the AFC only gets wider while their media asskissers make excuses.