I must preface that I'm not a Steelers fan but live locally and thus see alot of this crap. My assumption is that most of these are run by "fans" and the writers just piggyback on stories written by others. Sites like Steelers Depot etc. I'm only asking because these sites seem to be particularly horrible click bait sites that I would hate to lump into the "local media" when it appears they are just a bunch of hacks fishing for clicks (Post Gazette ain't far from that). I'm just curious if any of you read stuff from site like Steelers Depot or Steelers Nation. They reek of Vuk style journalism.
O.T. Off Market Steelers Sites
- Thread starter Usuallyunusual-partdeux
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Every once in a while I get suckered into clicking on something there.
My biggest pet peeve with them are their stories with headlines like "Blockbuster Trade Being Discussed For Brandon Aiyuk" and it turns out to be some cockamamie plan the the writer cooked up just to get clicks and has no basis in fact or even actual rumor. Just some jerk on the other end of the computer trying to represent himself as something he is not (an actual journalist) and making crap up to get clicks.
pretty much same boat. i think i follow steelers depot on twitter and its' exactly that. The headlines, Steelers close to getting Aiyuk and you click and it's, "man, wouldnt it be great" and you just feel foolish for falling for it..
that stupid site had us "close to landing Aiyuk" for about 4 months now..
That and the daily Kenny Pickett name drop. "Aiyuk concerned about playing for a team that would have Kenny Pickett on the roster last year." Stuff is hilarious.
There are a billion anonymous turds with blue check marks on Twitter named MinkahBurgh, Portersburgh, SteelersNAt or some such lameness and right on cue any time Kenny Pickett does something (practices, talks to the press, goes somewhere with his wife) they will take a shot at him.
Dudes are clowns and they're incentivized to post that garbage because they get meager checks from Elon Musk to do so. A huge part of this ecosystem is just meaningless clickbait engagement for pennies. All these dudes need to get a life.
You buy those checks now but it is amusing that it's daily. Steelers fan base has gotten really weird.
The online Steelers community is viscerally toxic. You can't say anything remotely critical about any of their sacred cows. It's a cult.
The Steelers have been making pirate style moves and yet fans are elated.
the claypoole trade was good. The Dionte trade, terrible. i liked the FA pickup of Queens, i think he was a big upgrade although i think steeler fans are expecting too much..
The draft under Khan has improved dramatically and i know that it's very early to say that.
Some other off season moves under khan:
Picking up peterson. i loved it initially but damn did that not age well.. Herbig the guard is ok, i liked the Larry ogunjobi pickup..
The WR situation so far is an abortion. Watkins, miller, von whatever, i mean what the hell are we doing. But again, it's early and still possible to fix that problem..
what is really going to define Khan is obviously what the qbs do this year. i mean, that's going to make him a genius or a goat (not the good goat) with steelers fans. If Russ or Fields pans out, he is a legend. If at this time, we are starting another qb because Russ and Fields failed, he is going down as a terrible GM..
As opposed to the gravitas over here: Clemson and FSU heading to b12; perception of b12 vs acc; best bbq joints in the Burgh????
Steelers Nation site is bad too. I hate that they have that name. Broad factual sounding headlines that turn out to be a sliver of the truth by an unknown source
But no one presents themselves as anything but a rando message board guy. A lot of those are full blown sites.
Part of me wonders whether no FA WR of any real talent wanted to play in an Arthur Smith offense. He uses a ton of TE/RB and runs a lot. It's not a great scheme if you're a WR trying to get a lot of targets to get paid. You also have to block well and often. All of that could be reasons why we traded Diontae.
Agreed that Khan has done better from a team talent standpoint. He did also have better draft options than Colbert's last few years (I said at the time that I wouldn't have taken Najee tho). The Claypool trade was all on him and that netted a really high impact player. Colbert's last comparable move would have been Minkah.
Also agree that the QB issue is make or break for him. He better pray to God that Kenny doesn't light it up anywhere else. He probably won't, but that would be something that a GM's reputation can't recover from. I kind of think Russ will be just ok, they go 9-7 again and re-sign him to another 2 year deal and just end up kicking the can down the road for 2 more years until Tomlin calls it quits.
great point. i cant imagine any good FA WR wants to run block on 95% of the downs.
I generally don't believe any of that kind of crap about the Steelers, because historically they never do anything involving trading for or signing a big name brand type player, although this year, out of character they did sign Wilson and trade for Fields and sign Queen who was a top FA LB, so this year the unlikely might happen, but I don't read those stories, I figure if something Un Steelers like happens I'll hear about it.
any news "leaks" are going to come from a national guy, not a local beat writer here in pittsburgh, not on talk shows and surely not from a fan on a steeler site..
its kind of sad but even supposed local insiders like Kaboly dont have any clue whats going on. have to hear it first from people like Shefter
Blame Rainman Rooney, every year he proclaims, "we need to run the ball better/more" and pushes already conservative Tomlin to play a stone age offense as Art2 masturbates over 1970s Super Bowl videos.
I saw Kaboly on McAfee's show a few weeks ago, he is just some dumpy looking Yinzer, makes Madden look like George Clooney
Basically all the sites just aggregate news stories reported by others and many fans use these as the "source" rather than the actual sports writers who reported the news, gathered the quotes, or wrote the stories. Kozora does a pretty good job at Depot (the owner of that site is kind of a clown, though) with original content and there are some good Steelers writers/Twitter follows who are good with film study and analysis. Overall, you're correct in saying they piggyback off others and put together click bait stories. Really not much different than Pro Football Talk at the national level.
You bring up an interesting point and it's funny how each outlet frames the exact same story with different headlines based on the narrative they want to advance for example outlet A. Insider shares insight into Harris's future. Outlet B. Insider blasts Harris's career outlook. Outlet C. Insider believes Harris's career is already over. It's all about the narrative people. The media has been manipulating and framing people's opinions for years. I heard an artist says once that a music executive told him most people are stupid and sheep. They will believe what we tell them to believe by manipulating quotes, images, and cherry picking what news they report. I don't think he was wrong 😞.
They don't even do that, though. A lot of this stuff is just BS opinion that uses out of context information or quotes and then they twist it into something. And they will do that for three or four days with the same topic.
Thing about blog writers, they get paid by the 500 word article. Need to churn out quite a few to make that $40 you get for each one. But that's how it works so it invites a lot of nonsense and success is measured in clicks. All the goofy ads along the sides pay for those clicks and there is a premium if you actually click on one that uses your cookies to show you something similar to your Amazon wish list. Had a buddy that did this with a website. It's very passive income if you're the owner and just have to drop $40 Venmo payments once in a while.
