Taylor agreed to a contract that will pay him $2.7 million, which is down from the $7 million commitment he had in place for the 2014 season. There wasn't really much choice.
Taylor knew that if he didn't make the concession, the Steelers would simply release him. Having watched the James Harrison scenario unfold a year ago, he also knew a fresh start wasn't necessarily a good idea. Moving probably wouldn't improve his financial situation much, and he'd have to learn a new system somewhere else.
Taylor and his agent were smart enough to realize familiar was better, even if it represented a significant financial hit. But now the Steelers are depending on a cornerback who readily acknowledges his skills are on the wane by accepting a pay cut of more than $4 million.
Is that going to help a defense that gave up too many big plays in 2013? Too much of the Steelers' defense looked old and tired last season, and Taylor was one of the prime suspects to fit that profile.
Having him back at a reduced price helps the bottom line, but it may not do a whole lot for a secondary that had major problems.
---
--MIXED SIGNALS
The start of a new Pirates season is great for KDKA-FM (93.7 The Fan), which cleaned up in the ratings last year.
The Pirates' unexpected success gave the station a huge spike that culminated with spectacular numbers in October. The expected drop came after the season, but The Fan is still making piles of cash despite having a lot of uninspired programming on its regular schedule.
They're practically printing money with a sports talk station that hits a demographic advertisers covet. Because of The Fan's success for CBS, the expectation has been that Clear Channel, the other big operator, will launch its own sports station on FM.
That hasn't happened, and the reasons are complicated. Insiders say Clear Channel fears that a sports talk station would poach more listeners away from WDVE, which is the perennial jewel in Clear Channel's cluster of stations.
WDVE took a big hit in the most recent (January) ratings. It was sixth overall in the market, and even trailed two other Clear Channel stations. Some of that is seasonal because harsh weather tends to skew ratings in favor of news stations, but it appears WDVE has had erosion issues for a while.
Clear Channel's answer is to further spread sports programming among its other stations. Tim Benz, former morning host on WXDX (The X) now has responsibility for sports programming within the cluster. That includes hosting shows on ESPN 970 AM solo and in tandem with Stan Savran.
That's fine, but the station has a lousy signal and a lot of listeners don't have patience with anything that doesn't boom in on the AM dial. Meanwhile, the commercial breaks on The Fan get longer, the cash registers keep beeping, and they're looking at a fresh six-month boost from almost-daily Pirates' programming.
You can't have much of a sports talk battle if one side doesn't really commit to a fight.
---
--NO PROGRESS
Duquesne must have had good reasons for firing Ron Everhart in 2012, but it isn't like things have gotten better.
No comments:
Post a Comment