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Steelers Miss Out on Hadnot

Mar 10, 2008 – 10:08 PM
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JJ Cooper

JJ Cooper %BloggerTitle%

This hurts a little.

The Steelers brought Rex Hadnot into town last week with an eye on signing the guard/center to give the team some competition for a starting role at either center or guard. But he left without signing an offer, and there was talk that his asking price (said to be $5 million a year or so by some rumors) may make him too expensive.

Now he's signed with the Browns at the oh-so-reasonable two-years, $7 million. Yes, it may say something that a $3.5 million a year deal is reasonable, but in this market it is--and it's less than the total money of the deal the Steelers gave Sean Mahan last year. In looking at Hadnot last week in action, it was pretty apparent that he's nothing special, but he is a bigger and stronger lineman than Sean Mahan, and he would have given the Steelers some more flexibility on the line.
There aren't a whole lot of starting caliber lineman left out there on the free agent market. Pittsburgh could go bargain hunting, or they could simply decide to handle all of their needs come draft time. But right now there's not a whole lot of reason to think that the Steelers line won't be worse in 2008 than it was in 2007. They've watched the team's best offensive lineman (Alan Faneca) leave in free agency while the team has a left tackle (Marvel Smith) coming off of back surgery and a backup tackle (Max Starks) that they can't seem to decide if they want back or not.

For the Browns, the offseason spending binge continues. There's still the question of how much missing out on the first three rounds of the draft will cost the Browns in the long term, but in the short-term it's hard to argue that they've improved this offseason.
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