I am bolding the most important part to me here.
I mean you were probably going to have to hand Pickens a big old bag of money anyway to keep him happy. But now you definitely have to.
And the likelihood that a run heavy team is going to want to give both of them that big bag - particularly when to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge their best work comes on the same sort of deep routes - seems low.
I mean, yes, they could do it. Philadelphia do it. But it seems pretty likely that there's a scenario here where they don't pay Pickens the bag as well and they're okay with it. They're not tied to the idea that Pickens is a WR1 calibre player here for the next X years.
Which, as I said, is where I start asking questions.
Personally I'm not okay with Pickens' inconsistent effort. Yeah, last year was bleak for the WRs, but I think it's smart business in the NFL to get rid of players who don't keep their head up when things get bleak. Given his inconsistency on the field, I see no reason to doubt the pre-draft reports and occasional media reports that he's a pain in the rear behind the scenes too. So that does colour my view.
But I think while trying to put aside bias as much as possible, if you're looking for the ramifications of the Steelers' actions and the possible reasons they're doing this, then I think it is very hard to argue that Aiyuk's pay cheque doesn't threaten Pickens' future with the Steelers, and that the Steelers are willing to threaten Pickens' future here due to his immaturity.
I would also add that I doubt Pickens is going to act out over Aiyuk being here unless things go weird and he's not getting targets. Agree with everyone there, said it already.
But he is going to want an extension next summer and we're here discussing this scenario because that doesn't always go smooth.
