Was Placing the Franchise Tag on Starks That Bad of a Move?

Mike Florio has written his 10 worst offseason moves, and the Steelers have made the list with what he writes is the 7th worst move. Florio writes that the Steelers placing the franchise tag on Max Starks was a bad move, and here’s his take on it:

7. Pittsburgh Steelers using franchise tag on Max Starks

Last year, the Steelers inexplicably opted to apply the transition tag to tackle Max Starks. Given that there was no significant market for his services, he promptly signed the tender offer—and received a base salary of $6.985 million last season.

In the end, the Steelers needed him, due to the back troubles of Marvel Smith. But Starks was hardly dominant. Jamie Dukes of the NFL Network believes (and we agree) that the Steelers’ offensive line was worse than any other Super Bowl-winning team’s wall of blockers.

So, this time around, the Steelers used the franchise tag on Starks. Once again, he promptly signed it. And he’ll make $8.451 million this year, guaranteed.

That’s $15.436 million for two seasons—for a guy who drew no interest last year, when limited only by the Steelers’ right to match any offer he received, with no compensation if they chose not to do so.

Meanwhile, the Steelers have had to navigate some serious (and, for them, uncharacteristic) salary cap problems.

The better move would have been to let him hit the market, where he would have realized that he’s worth far less than $8 per year.

Florio does make some good points in his thoughts, but there are a few things that I disagree with him about when it comes to the club franchising Starks.

First, I don’t buy that the Steelers O-line was the worst of all-time to win a Super Bowl. If it was so bad, wouldn’t have the Chargers given the Steelers a heck of a lot more issues? They got to Ben Roehlisberger just once, and overall the QB was sacked 8 times in three playoff games vs the Chargers, Ravens and Cards.

The run game wasn’t great, but Starks did a nice job, and had a big part of that nice job, making sure Ben didn’t get drilled more often than he did.

Second, Florio says that Starks making $15.436 over two seasons is way too much. I can’t argue too much with that, but the second highest paid position in the league on average is that of left offensive tackle, as they make an average yearly salary of $5.5 mil per season.

If he got paid the yearly average the past two seasons, that would mean he would make $11 mil over two seasons. Yes, the Steelers got caught a bit overpaying for Starks, but they usually don’t make that mistake, and the fact they overpaid him by $4.4 mil in that of what an average tackle makes, I don’t think it’s all as bad as Florio makes it out to be.

Finally, the notion that Starks should have been allowed to hit the market to me was way too much of a risk. Let’s put it this way, there’s always ONE team that is dumb enough to overpay players that don’t truly earn it (see the Washington Redskins), and Starks is a player coming off a win in the Super Bowl with his teammates, and there’s no doubt that a team in my opinion would have given him a deal worth $8 mil.

While franchising him costs the Steelers, the club still wants to try to work out a long term deal. If they do get that done, then they have done their job, and in the end, Florio’s talk becomes nothing more than mindless chatter about nothing.