Here we go again. Another offseason looms where NFL franchises will do everything in their power to better themselves.

The two most commons ways for teams to improve are via free agency and the draft; signing veteran players or acquiring young studs, who may help a squad reach their ultimate goal of winning a Super Bowl. Several teams have already begun the process of signing players to futures contracts, while releasing veterans for salary cap and other issues.

With nothing but talk and transactions dominating the professional football landscape for many months to come, fans begin to speculate on what moves their teams might make, in order to achieve their goals. Some of these ideas are solid concepts, while others border on lunacy.

Steelers Nation is no different in their train of thought, assuming another team’s trash could be their treasure. Today we’re going to discuss one of those recent discards from the Cleveland Browns, the well-traveled Josh McCown, and why Pittsburgh should pass on adding him to their roster.

Age

The first knock against signing McCown?

He turns 38 in July.

That’s pretty much it! We all know players decline with age (unless you’re James Harrison).

Injuries

Fact: Josh McCown has never played 16 games in any of his 14 years in the NFL. Part of that reason is due to him being signed as a backup, and the other reason is due to injuries.

The quarterback initially entered the league with the Arizona Cardinals, but bounced around to several teams including the Lions, Raiders, Dolphins, Panthers, 49ers, Bears, Buccaneers and Browns.

McCown suffered injuries with at least half of those teams throughout his career.

He doesn’t win games

McCown only has an official winning record (3-2) in one season with the Bears, which was pretty much the season he came in for Jay Cutler and provided some longevity to his career with a 13-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

Otherwise, Josh’s stats have been pedestrian.  In 33 appearances with 22 starts as a Cardinal, he had a 57.8 completion percentage, throwing 25 touchdown passes to 29 interceptions, and a 10-12 record.

McCown went 2-7 in Oakland (10:11 TD:INT), had a 1-10 (11:14 TD:INT) record in Tampa, and duplicated his 1-10 record in Cleveland (18:10 TD:INT). He has a career record of 18-42 with 59.1% passes completed for 14,242 yards and a 79:69 TD:INT ratio.

You be the judge if those numbers are good enough to step in for Ben Roethlisberger. (I say they’re not.)

Cost and continuation

Does McCown still want to play football?

When he had his best years in Chicago, the QB was said to want to retire. He then turned around and followed former Bears head coach Lovie Smith to Tampa Bay, signing a two-year $10 million contract with the Bucs.

Following a bad year in Southern Florida, McCown moved to Cleveland on a $14 million three-year contract.

The Steelers aren’t shelling out starting quarterback money for a backup. Period.

Bruce Gradkowski signed a one-year deal last season for $478,000 with a $80,000 signing bonus. He previously signed a 3-year contract that earned him between $1.5-2 million per year between base salary and bonuses.

Previous backups such as Byron Leftwich and Charlie Batch were paid in the same ballpark, with Batch making about $1 million during Leftwich’s final two years in Pittsburgh.

With the need to spend their money on other needs (such as Antonio Brown, Lawrence Timmons and Le’Veon Bell) I highly doubt the Steelers will part with a price that would bring McCown in as a backup.

Does he want to be a backup?

Forget wanting to play: would McCown be willing to take a backup role at this stage in his career, with other other teams still looking for starters?

There’s a possibility that the journeyman player could reunite with his former offensive coordinator in quarterback poor San Francisco, and have a shot at a starting job, while the Niners possibly draft and groom their eventual franchise QB…

Benefits or lack thereof

Which leads me to the final thought of, what could McCown offer to the Steelers?

I’ve already shown he’s a shaky quarterback, though he was in shaky situations throughout his career; but he was also released by nine other teams who didn’t see him as a solution. Maybe that was due to injury, maybe it was due to a costly contract, but also at his age, what is it that McCown brings with him?

Perhaps he could be a stop-gap between Ben’s potential successor. That would assume the Steelers draft a QB this year, pass on resigning Landry Jones, and also cut waiver wire pickup and current clipboard holder Zach Mettenberger.

That’s quite a tall order of presumptions, as a two-year deal would see McCown in Pittsburgh through his 39th birthday, but enough time to help, along with Roethlisberger, groom a young heir to the Steelers throne. Yet, that’s a lot of maneuvering to end up with two new passers behind Ben. The smart money is on the Steelers seeing what Mettenberger is capable of this preseason, and potentially bringing back Landry Jones to compete with him for the two spot behind Ben.

In other words, signing McCown is a gamble on an unreliable signal caller that’s an injury away from forcing Mettenberger and/or a rookie onto the field instead. We’ve already seen this pattern before with Michael Vick, and I’m not sure it’s a path Pittsburgh wants to journey down again.