No offense to Chris Hoke, who is definitely one of the best 1A options at Nose Tackle in the league, but he is not the run stopper that Casey Hampton is. We all saw what happened immediately after Aaron Smith went down for the year again this year. The Steelers run defense sagged. They were still better than most teams, but there was a definite decrease in productivity. Ziggy Hood got more and more play time and hopefully he'll prove to be a worthy successor for one of the aging linemen on the Steelers roster. The number one thing the Steelers must do to remain in competition for the Super Bowl next year is tag Casey Hampton as the franchise player. Yeah they'll have to pay him big money, but his nickname is big snack. Big money for big snack. But, that assures them of keeping the core of the defensive line together for 1 more year. If he breaks down this year, then they've only tied up 1 year's salary and don't have to give a signing bonus.
The bad thing is rumblings from the Big Snack, not his stomache, but from the rumor mill is that he does not want to tagged. Gee sorry, that's kinda why that's in place so teams don't lose a franchise player because he doesn't want to stay. Could be that he'll be a disruption if the Steelers do it, but he's been through 2 Super Bowls with most of these teammates and nothing in his past to make us think he'd be a disruptive force. So, re-sign Casey. Step #1.
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Losing Aaron Smith was a HUGE blow. Sort of deja vu to what happened to us the year following our 2006 super bowl win.
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