The Pittsburgh Steelers only have a handful of remaining veterans who own rings from Super Bowl XL and Super Bowl XLIII, and speculation has mounted as to how many of those might be back for 2016. The team erased all doubt when it came to one of them, as the Steelers long snapper Greg Warren resigned with the team, inking a one year extension that keeps him in Pittsburgh for an 11th season.
- This is the fourth year the Steelers have signed Greg Warren to a 1 year contract, per Chris Adamanski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
The Steelers originally signed Greg Warren as an undrafted rookie free agent in the spring of 2005 where he replaced Mike Schneck who’d held down the long snapping duties since 1999. Only linebacker James Harrison has been with the Steelers longer than Greg Warren, and Warren’s tenure matches that of Ben Roethlisberger and is one year less than that of Heath Miller’s.
James Harrison has yet to decide if he will return for a final season, and the Steelers have not signaled whether they will welcome him back, although Jim Wexell of Steel City Insider has reported that the Steelers want to give priority developing Bud Dupree and Jarvis Jones. Heath Miller has also been rumored to be an impending cap casualty, but that is not likely to happen.
The Case Steelers Resigning Greg Warren
While it’s a done deal, the case against the Steelers resigning Greg Warren would flow like this: football is a young man’s game and at age 35, Greg Warren more than qualifies for NFL senior citizen status.
- On top of that, the only thing that Greg Warren does for the Steelers is snap on punts and place kicks.
As injuries to Maurkice Pouncey, Le’Veon Bell, Antonio Brown, Kelvin Beachum and DeAngelo Williams illustrates, winning in the modern NFL is as much a game of attrition as it is anything else. Locking up a roster spot to someone who is nothing more than a long snapper is a waste, and the slot should go to someone who offers greater position flexibility….
The Case for the Steelers Resigning Greg Warren
…Chuck Noll in fact, doggedly held that same philosophy on long snapping, believing it was a waste of a roster spot. But in a muddy game at Cleveland Stadium during the Steelers disastrous 1988 season, Hall of Fame center Mike Webster once snapped the ball over Harry Newsome’s that ended up causing Pittsburgh a 50 yard loss.
Chuck Noll wised up, and relented to signing a long snapper.
The case for the Steelers resigning Greg Warren comes down to one very simple question:
- When was the last time you saw a bad snap impact the outcome of a Steelers game?
The answer would probably be the time that James Harrison snapped the ball over Mitch Berger’s head in the 2008 Steelers loss to the Giants.
And Harrison was snapping because Greg Warren had torn his ACL in that game. Greg Warren has one job to do for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He does that job very well, and the Steelers are smart to keep him around for as long as he can keep doing it.
