Bewerbungen » The “Killer Bs” era is officially over in Pittsburgh.

Antonio Brown is an Oakland Raider. Le’Veon Bell is a New York Jet http://www.oaklandraidersteamonline.com/trayvon-mullen-jersey , and Ben Roethlisberger will be part of a roster that will be considerably younger in 2019 thanks to an influx of draft picks.The Steelers began free agency by completing a deal that sent Brown, a four-time All-Pro wide receiver, to Oakland in exchange for a third-round pick and a fifth-round pick in next month’s draft, a quiet end to more than two months of drama in which Brown made it publicly know he’d rather continue his career elsewhere than return to Pittsburgh in 2019.The Raiders sent the 66th and 141st overall selections to the Steelers for Brown.“We believe the compensation, which now gives us four picks in the first 83 selections and 10 overall in the upcoming draft, can benefit our efforts to improve our team in 2019 and beyond,” Pittsburgh general manager Kevin Colbert said in a statement. “Antonio remains one of the best players in the National Football League, but as we believe, this move was in the best interest of the Pittsburgh Steelers. We wish Antonio all the best in the rest of his career.”Brown’s departure leaves the Steelers thin at wide receiver. JuJu Smith-Schuster emerged as a full-blown star in 2018 — hauling in 111 passes for 1,426 yards and seven touchdowns while earning a spot in the Pro Bowl — but James Washington was only sporadically effective as a rookie.Bell, who sat out last season after declining to sign his $14.5 franchise tender, agreed to a four-year deal with the New York Jets. James Conner made the Pro Bowl in Bell’s absence and Jaylen Samuels showed promise as a rookie. The Steelers will receive a compensatory selection for Bell in 2020.By then the mild rebuild the team is planning following the departure of their two stars should be well underway. The process began on the opening day of free agency when they shored up their uneven secondary by signing former Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Steven Nelson to a three-year deal worth $25.5 million.The Steelers entered the offseason prioritizing defensive players who could create takeaways after they produced just 15 turnovers in 2018. The 26-year-old Nelson had four interceptions with the Chiefs last season, matching the entire total of Pittsburgh’s secondary.Nelson will line up across from veteran Joe Haden, pushing former first-round pick Artie Burns into a reserve role and putting his long-term future with the team in doubt. Burns, Pittsburgh’s top selection in the 2016 draft, struggled to stay in the lineup last season.Kansas City selected the 5-foot-11, 194-pound Nelson in the third round of the 2015 draft. He played in 52 games, including 38 starts, across four seasons with the Chiefs.“I’m all smiles right now can’t be happier they got a straight worker,” Nelson tweeted shortly after agreeing to terms.Pittsburgh re-signed linebacker Anthony Chickillo to a two-year deal worth $8 million. Chickillo, a sixth-round pick in the 2015 draft, has seven career sacks and has carved a niche as a valuable contributor on special teams. The Steelers also re-signed punter Jordan Berry to a two-year deal. Berry averaged 43.7 yards per kick in 2018 http://www.oaklandraidersteamonline.com/isaiah-johnson-jersey , right in line with his career average of 43.8.While Pittsburgh signed center Maurkice Pouncey and guard Ramon Foster to new deals last week, the Steelers sent right tackle Marcus Gilbert to Arizona in exchange for a sixth-round pick. Gilbert, a second-round choice in 2011, started 87 games for the Steelers, most of them at right tackle. He ran into injury trouble in each of the last two seasons and also missed four weeks for violating the league’s policy on performance enhancers.Gilbert played just five games in 2018 due to a lingering knee injury that sent him to injured reserve in December.The Steelers have some in-house options to replace Gilbert, including second-year lineman Chukwuma Okorafor, veteran Matt Feiler, and Jerald Hawkins, a fourth-round pick in 2016 who has played in just five games, mostly because of injuries. Tom Brady will soon slip on his sixth Super Bowl ring, and Herb Adderley is the only other player on the planet who can relate to that level of success in the National Football League, which celebrates its 100th season this year.“It’s going to be a long time, another 100 years, before somebody wins himself six titles,” suggested Adderley, the Hall of Fame cornerback for Vince Lombardi’s great Green Bay Packers teams of the 1960s.“Because of all the free agency and guys jumping around from team to team, you’re not going to be on one team long enough and you’re not going to be lucky enough to be with a team every year that’s going to win a championship.”Adderley, who turns 80 next month, won five championships in Green Bay, including the first two Super Bowls, plus another with Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys in 1971, as did Hall of Fame lineman Forrest Gregg http://www.oaklandraidersteamonline.com/hunter-renfrow-jersey , who died last month at age 85.Their Green Bay teammate, offensive lineman Fuzzy Thurston, who died in 2014, won all six of his titles with Lombardi and the Packers just as Brady has won each of his half dozen rings in New England with coach Bill Belichick.Belichick reminds Adderley a lot of Lombardi.“The teams are fundamentally sound and they play with discipline,” Adderley said. “And if you get a team that can do that week after week after week and you have good players, you’re going to win.”Adderley, who just celebrated his 22-year-old cousin Nasir Adderley’s selection in the NFL draft by the Los Angeles Chargers, won his six rings in a 12-year span.“You look at all the great players that never played on a championship team that went to the Hall of Fame like Gale Sayers and Deacon Jones, one of my classmates when in 1980 when I went in,” Adderley said. “There are just so many guys that deserved just one Super Bowl title and then I end up with six, which was half of my career.“I played 12 years and six times to be an NFL champion, I mean, that’s mind blowing.”Thurston won his six titles over a 10-year span, Gregg over a 15-year career and Brady has won his six rings over a 19-year career. He’ll be 42 this summer as he enters his 20th season. Gregg retired at 38, Thurston at 34 and Adderley at 33.Gregg was the first man to play and coach in the Super Bowl. He took the Cincinnati Bengals to their first Super Bowl during the 1981 season when they lost 26-21 to Joe Montana and the 49ers.Gregg died last month after a long fight with Parkinson’s, a disease his neurologist and family believe might have been triggered by countless concussions he sustained while playing football in the 1950s at SMU and in the NFL from 1956-71 during a Hall of Fame career that led Lombardi to call him “the finest football player I ever coached.”“Aw man, I was with him for nine years in Green Bay and then we were teammates in Dallas,” Adderley said. “For 10 years we were teammates and we were the best of friends, I’m telling you. They had a grading system where offensive linemen would be graded on pass blocking and run blocking and every week Forrest Gregg was the only one that ended up with a 100 on both run and pass, and if he didn’t, it would be 95.“Other guys on that line in the Hall of Fame, Jim Ringo and Jerry Kramer — and Fuzzy Thurston wasn’t a bad lineman http://www.seattleseahawksteamonline.com/marquise-blair-jersey , either — but those guys didn’t end up with the same grades as Forrest Gregg. That’s why Lombardi said he was the best that he’d ever coached.”While he believes it might take another century for the four-man club to expand to five, Adderley concedes that Brady might very well become the first player to win seven NFL championships.“Oh yes, indeed. He has a shot at it as long as he plays,” Adderley said. “As far as I’m concerned, because of the titles that he’s won, he’s the best quarterback to play. And Bill Belichick gets a lot of credit because of the system that he has. He brings in guys that fit in that system. It doesn’t matter who it is, Brady’s going to hit the open man.”Adderley, who lives outside Philadelphia, said Lombardi’s teams may have won all their titles in a shorter span than Belichick has won his championships in New England but the similarities are striking: both dynasties are marked by sidestepping boneheaded plays and calls that their opponents just can’t avoid.“There would be games and seasons that we wouldn’t make any mistakes to beat ourselves,” Adderley said. “Of course, everybody makes mistakes, even the scientists — they use pencils with erasers on the end because everybody’s going to make mistakes now and then. But we didn’t make enough to beat ourselves and other teams either we forced them to make mistakes or they just lacked discipline.“So, that’s the key, if you are fundamentally sound and play with discipline, you’re going to be in the running to win. And I think that as long as Brady and Belichick are there, Brady’s going to have a chance to get No. 7,” Adderley said.“And as long as he keeps going, our names will always be mentioned: Thurston, Gregg and myself.”