Mark Madden: Trading for Roquan Smith would improve the Steelers defense, but consider the end game

Chicago linebacker Roquan Smith wants to be traded. The Steelers might be interested, at least in the mind’s eye of our fertile imaginations.

Smith is good. Smith, 25, was the eighth pick overall in 2018. He has been second-team All-Pro in each of the last two seasons.

Devin Bush isn’t good. Bush, 24, was the 10th pick overall in 2019. He has disappointed. Bush had knee surgery in 2020. He played last year as if his knee hadn’t fully recovered. Reviews of Bush’s performance at this year’s training camp are mediocre at best.

Bush should have come to camp and quickly established a stranglehold on his position, as his talent dictates.

Instead, he is competing with Robert Spillane, a try-guy hard hitter but a comparative mediocrity when it comes to ability.

It’s a battle Spillane might be winning. That’s an indictment of Bush on many levels.

So the Steelers trade for Smith. Plug him in Bush’s spot. Myles Jack is then the second-best inside linebacker, an assignment he has a better chance of fulfilling.

But it’s not that easy.

The deals most fantasized about are Smith to Pittsburgh for Bush and receiver Chase Claypool, or for Claypool and a second-round draft choice.

But why would Chicago want Bush?

Claypool and a second-round pick provide more reasonable return. But Smith is a player of such pedigree that it seems the Bears would get better offers.

Once the Steelers get Smith, they’ve got to sign him.

Smith has one year remaining on his rookie contract. His salary cap hit is $9.735 million. The Steelers have $9.685 million in cap space.

But Smith reportedly wants to be the highest-paid linebacker in the NFL. (Edge rushers don’t count.) Indianapolis’ Shaquille Leonard signed a five-year contract worth $99.25 million last year. Smith expects to top that.

The Steelers already have the highest-paid edge rusher, highest-paid safety, No. 8 highest-paid defensive tackle and highest-paid defensive platoon.

Does the Steelers defense really need to add the highest-paid linebacker? Shouldn’t that defense already be great given the investment?

Of course it should. But it might not be. It wasn’t last season.

What’s the end game? Does Smith make the Steelers a legit Super Bowl contender? He might not even make them a playoff team.

What would losing Claypool do to the offense? Do the Steelers want to subtract from that side of the ball, which is already weak, to further bolster a defense that should already have enough to excel?

Claypool wasn’t terrific last year. But 2023 is Claypool’s hold-in year, so he should be motivated.

At 6-foot-4, Claypool in the slot could combine with 6-5 tight end Pat Freiermuth to create nasty matchup problems for the opposition in the middle of the field. What slightly built slot corner is going to cover either?

Of bigger concern: The Steelers might be stuck in the feared cycle of finish middle, draft middle, stay middle.

The Steelers erred in 2019, when Ben Roethlisberger’s elbow blew up in the season’s second game and they started 0-3.

Instead of letting excrement roll downhill and finishing low enough to perhaps draft quarterback Justin Herbert (who went sixth overall), the Steelers traded the first-round pick that might have been used thereof to Miami for safety Minkah Fitzpatrick.

No complaints about Fitzpatrick. He has made first-team All-Pro twice since joining the Steelers.

But it would have been better to stink in 2019 and draft Herbert. There’s zero doubt about that. Scratching and clawing to go 8-8 behind scrub QBs Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges did no tangible good.

Nor will trading for Smith and doing the same this year. Or even making the playoffs and going one-and-done. Consider the end game.

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