Max Starks

Oh. Jesus. Christ!

I was joking with my brother on Tuesday that, if the San Diego Chargers decided to place the franchise tag on Darren Sproles, it would be the second dumbest tagging in the past 12 months. Of course, the first dumbest would be when the Steelers put the transition tag on Max Starks, paying him $7 million to sit on the bench.

Now that they have placed the franchise tag on Starks, Sproles goes down to number three (the Chargers gave Sproles the franchise designation yesterday).

I have three words for Kevin Colbert and company in the wake of their colossally retarded decision: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

You could argue that the Steelers front office knew that Marvel Smith was going to get hurt and not be able to finish the season, thus they would need to have Starks, who can also play left tackle. Smith gets hurt a lot, he has only played 16 games in a season once, and it's always good to have an insurance policy. Sure. You could argue that.

The fact remains, though, that they were prepared to commit $7 million to Starks for the 2008 season to back up Willie Colon and as insurance just in case Marvel got hurt. Okay, he did get hurt. But, this article claims that Starks "helped the Steelers win their sixth Super Bowl." It's true that he was their starting left tackle. It's true that they won their sixth Super Bowl (the Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII, by the way). Seriously, though, Starks helped the Steelers win Super Bowl XLIII in the same way that Bubby Brister helped the Broncos win XXXIII: He was a back-up that stepped in when the starter got hurt.

Let's forget for a moment that the Steelers just handed a man that couldn't beat out Willie Colon almost $8.5 million. And let's think about the fact that they have three other offensive linemen -- including one Marvel Smith -- that are up for a new deal.

How do they negotiate with Smith, a six year starter, when they gave a back-up that much money? How do they negotiate with Colon? What about Chris Keomeautu?

Or, more to the point, how do they negotiate with James Harrison, a man who helped the Steelers win their sixth Super Bowl? And, ya know, he actually helped. Much in the way that Rod Smith helped the Broncos win Super Bowl XXXIII... he made a huge play that resulted in a touchdown.

I mean, Harrison's going to look at any offer that the Steelers make him and say, "Wait. You gave that idiot Max Starks eight and a half million dollars and you come at me with this?"

So, this reminds me that the Steelers have some pending free agents...