First Call: Steelers were interested in Terrell Edmunds; ACC receiver gets praise from Steelers

Wednesday’s “First Call” features Omar Khan’s reaction to Terrell Edmunds’ decision to leave for Philadelphia.

The Steelers were apparently impressed with an ACC receiver who may be a good fit in the draft.

Plus, there are plenty of decisions that have been made about potential NFL rules changes that have fans agitated.

Talking Terrell

While meeting with the media at the NFL owners meetings, Steelers general manager Omar Khan addressed the departure of safety Terrell Edmunds.

And Khan suggested that the team did have an interest in retaining Edmunds, but he wasn’t interested in staying in Pittsburgh at whatever price the club was offering.

“We were interested and had conversations with him. But he decided that the best thing for him was to pursue an opportunity elsewhere. But I’ve got a lot of respect for him, and he’ll always be a Steeler. We had a lot of good talks with him and his agent throughout the process,” Khan said via SteelersNow.com.

Given how much the Steelers chose to play three safeties last year, the organization is likely to either draft or sign another safety between now and when the season starts in September to take the field with Minkah Fitzpatrick and Damontae Kazee. This isn’t supposed to be a great draft class for safeties. So perhaps a trade or a signing is still to come.

“We evaluate every guy differently. In free agency, you can want something, but you have to wait and see and make it for not only them but for us. But all of those things are important. And obviously, you’d love a guy that can get the ball,” Khan said.

Edmunds ended up signing with the Philadelphia Eagles last week. Via NBC Sports Philadelphia, it was a one-year deal with the Eagles worth $2 million that includes just $600,000 in guaranteed money.

Taking notice

The Steelers are likely in the market for a receiver somewhere in the draft. Ex-Pitt and USC wide receiver Jordan Addison is a popular target among Steelers fans because of the great chemistry he shared with former Panthers teammate Kenny Pickett. Boston College’s Zay Flowers could prove to be another option.

But North Carolina’s Josh Downs has been rising up some draft boards of late. He’s not big at 5-foot-9, 171 pounds. However, over the last two years, Downs had 195 catches and 19 touchdowns for the Tar Heels, totaling 2,364 yards.

And, according to NFL rookie watch, Downs opened eyes at UNC’s Pro Day, including the Steelers. The junior pass-catcher was quoted as saying that “the Steelers told him it was one of the ‘cleanest’ workouts they’ve seen.”

Josh Downs’ routes are TOO clean

Downs said that after his Pro Day workout today, the Steelers told him it was one of the “cleanest” workouts they’ve seen.

The Tar Heels WR is currently projected to come off the board within the Top-50 picks. pic.twitter.com/ywtB28fIDz

— NFL Rookie Watch (@NFLRookieWatxh) March 28, 2023

ESPN.com rates Downs as the sixth-best receiver on the board.

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Split on Thursday talk

According to ProFootballTalk.com, the NFL will reinvestigate the idea of flex scheduling for “Thursday Night Football” again in May. The league did push that idea through after not having the votes at the owners meetings to approve the league’s proposed measure Tuesday.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wants the ability to move late-season games from Sunday to Thursday — with a 15-day advance notice — to construct better matchups for Amazon.

However, owners did concede something to the agenda of beefing up the Thursday night broadcasts. They decided to allow teams to play on two short weeks during the season.

That will allow a better crop of teams as candidates for late-season prime time games. Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com got an explanation from Steelers owner Art Rooney II as to why he was on board with the idea.

Rooney said he was ok with teams having two TNF in a season because the schedule can be worked out so that player health and safety risk is minimized— for example, giving teams back-to-back TNF with a bye on the other side. https://t.co/gcoGqftzRU

— Brooke Pryor (@bepryor) March 29, 2023

As PFT reminded us, the Dallas Cowboys played two Thursday night games in 2022, playing their annual Thanksgiving Day game and then again on Thursday, Dec. 29 following a Saturday, Christmas Eve game.

The Thursday night opener will not count as it is not played on a short week. Teams are limited to seven prime-time games a season.

That didn’t last long

So much for the idea of NFL video review for roughing the passer calls. A month ago, the Los Angeles Rams advanced that idea. But NFL’s owners rejected the proposal during the annual league meeting in Phoenix.

As we suggested at “Breakfast With Benz” when this story first broke, while some fans believe many roughing the passer calls to be hideous miscarriages of football justice, the NFL’s powers-that-be disagree. They’ll do anything in their power to protect quarterbacks, even if that means defending indefensibly silly flags against defenders just trying to make a tackle.

As NFL.com’s Judy Battista reported in February, the NFL’s competition committee reviewed more than 80 examples of roughing the passer penalties and found just three that the group deemed questionable.

The NFL has long since brainwashed itself when it comes to quarterback protection policies. Now it wants you to become brainwashed, too. It wants your eyes to become numb to hair trigger flags dropped at the most minimal of contact against a quarterback, so that the very idea of video review would seem pointless.

So far, those efforts are working on themselves. I hope fans keep watching with a higher threshold of acceptance.

So you’re sayin’ there’s a chance… in May?

While that rules debate was short-lived, another one still has some legs.

The NFL hasn’t completely killed the idea of implementing the XFL’s fourth-and-20 play replacement for onside kicks. Philadelphia Eagles management proposed the change. It would create a fourth-and-20 alternative snap. It’d be a down played from a team’s own territory with the chance to retain possession instead of attempting an onside kick.

XFL fans seem to like it. I don’t. And the NFL isn’t ready to put it in play. But it is ready to talk about the concept more in May.

Although it sounds like it is still a long shot to pass.

“As a committee, it did not have a lot of support,” NFL Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay said. “I happen to be one of those that does support the discussion of it. There’s some analytics behind it, and we tried to show the analytics. But I’d say overall, there’s just not an appetite yet to have the onside go away.”

Via NFL.com, McKay made it sound like the fourth-and-20 idea may act as more of a catalyst to inspire more fluid onside kick rules instead.