Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Ice Breaks: Gay to Arizona

After more than a fortnight of free agency, everything was quiet in Pittsburgh. The Steelers had tendered offers to their RFAs, and none of the UFAs had signed elsewhere. But now, as most of the premier talent has inked deals, teams are trying to fill some holes and some of the Steelers UFA's have been drawing some interest.

By the way, how awesome of a word is "fortnight"?

Aside from the general fear-mongering that everyone and their mother was going to take a run at Mike Wallace, then that Wallace wanted too much money, nothing much was going on.

Last week, William Gay visited Tennessee, Denver, and Arizona and news broke on Sunday that Gay will be heading out to Pittsburgh West next season. Honestly, this is a bit of a loss for the Steelers as Gay had developed into a solid slot corner that was capable of playing on the outside in the regular package then sliding inside when the Steelers went to their nickel set. This means the Steelers will likely do what they can to re-sign Keenan Lewis, who had the best year of his career last year. Hopefully Curtis Brown and Cortez Allen (last year's 3rd and 4th round picks) are fully recovered from their injuries and studying the playbook this offseason, because they will see increased roles in the defense next year.

For William Gay, thanks for the time and effort you put in with the Black and Gold. Gay was often bashed for bad play, and he did have games where he was downright awful. On the other side of the coin, he showed some flashes of stellar play and made a few game-changing plays to seal up victories (namely last year in Cincinnati) for us. Hopefully the fans out in Arizona won't be as hard on him as Steelers fans were (particularly after the loss to the Ravens last year).

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