Steelers GM Says No Decision Made on Hines Ward

Steelers GM Says No Decision Made on Hines Ward General manager Kevin Colbert said Monday the team has had "internal discussions" on what to do with the franchise's all-time leading receiver, but no decision has been made.

NFL.com reported last week the Steelers were planning to release the 35-year-old Ward, who took on a diminished role last season behind Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders.

Ward posted on his Facebook page Saturday that he's willing to restructure his contract in hopes of finishing his career with Pittsburgh. Ward has two years remaining on his current deal at a cost of about $4 million a season.

The 14-year veteran became the eighth player in NFL history to reach 1,000 career receptions last season.

Cornerback Ike Taylor and linebackers Lawrence Timmons and LaMarr Woodley have agreed to restructure their contracts in hopes of getting under the salary cap.

Colbert said the team is in the middle of making free agent evaluations and won't make any move on Ward until that process is complete.

"That will give us an idea about what else is out there, where we stand with restructuring contracts and what we will have to do as far as possibly terminating people, both immediately and after the fact if we decide we want to add some players (in free agency)," Colbert said.

Ward is coming off a season in which he finished with 46 receptions for 381 yards and two touchdowns, his lowest totals in each category since he was a rookie in 1998. The 2006 Super Bowl MVP — who also won "Dancing With the Stars" last spring — is one of only two receivers in league history to reach 1,000 receptions and win at least two Super Bowls.

Colbert also said Monday injured running back Rashard Mendenhall likely will start the 2012 season on the physically unable to perform list while he continues to rehab the torn ACL in his right knee from the regular-season finale against Cleveland.

Sports of The Times: New York’s Best Quarterback? It’s Not a Snap Decision

Sports of The Times: New York’s Best Quarterback? It’s Not a Snap Decision All anybody can say for sure is that Eli Manning, with two Super Bowl rings for the Giants, has accomplished more than any other New York quarterback. But is he better than Joe Namath, the Super Bowl III icon whose Jets justified the American Football League? Better than two of the Giants’ previous championship quarterbacks in the modern T-formation era, Phil Simms and Charlie Conerly? Better than Y. A. Tittle, a two-time N.F.L. most valuable player with the Giants?

After watching professional quarterbacks as man and boy for more than six decades, I’ve always hesitated to rank them, say, 1 to 10, for several reasons.

As essential as a quality quarterback is, he doesn’t “win” a Super Bowl; he’s merely on a team that wins a Super Bowl. His success depends on how well his linemen block, how well his receivers get open and how well they catch his passes. It depends on how well his defensive and special teams units do their job. Quarterbacks are not golfers or sprinters or skiers. They’re not out there alone.

As much as anything else, a quarterback’s success also depends on how well his skills fit his coaches’ offensive system.

Another variable is what the ever-changing rules allow a quarterback and his receivers to do that a previous era’s quarterback and receivers could not do. And sometimes, his success or failure depends on how much his skill is sabotaged by inclement weather or an injury.

When Namath was told after Super Bowl III that he now was “king of the hill,” he disagreed.

“No, we’re king of the hill,” he said, meaning all the Jets’ players and coaches.

The Jets didn’t upset the Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Super Bowl III because Namath guaranteed it. They won because they were the better team that day as Namath engineered their offense, just as the Giants twice were the better team (offense, defense, special teams) in their last-minute Super Bowl upsets of the New England Patriots as Manning engineered their offense.

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As feared by opposing coaches as Namath was — “he tilts the field,” the Raiders ruler Al Davis often said — his career was derailed by knee and wrist surgery as well as the gradual decline of the Jets as a contender. He threw too many interceptions, but so did Brett Favre; each believed that his cannonlike arm could zing the pass in there before a defender could snatch it.

To assume that Manning will be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame because he has twice been a winning Super Bowl quarterback is, at best, premature. His eventual résumé will include what he does or doesn’t do over the rest of his career.

Jim Plunkett was the Raiders quarterback on two Super Bowl champions, but he’s not in the Hall of Fame. Conerly isn’t there, either. He should be, but he’s not. He once missed election by two votes and was somehow sidetracked. In the pre-Super Bowl era, he was the Giants’ quarterback on the 1956 N.F.L. championship team that pounded the Bears, 47-7, and on the teams that lost the title to Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts in 1958 (in overtime) and in 1959.

Tittle led the Giants to three consecutive N.F.L. championship games. They were routed in Green Bay, 37-0, in 1961. He threw for 33 touchdowns in 1962, but against the Packers at Yankee Stadium, a frigid swirling wind broke up his passes in a 16-7 loss. After throwing for 36 touchdowns in 1963, he was hobbled by a knee injury during a 14-10 defeat in Chicago. With better luck, Tittle might have been the first New York quarterback with two championships.

And yet Tittle, who also never led the 49ers to the N.F.L. championship before his trade to the Giants, is in the Hall of Fame. Deservedly so.

Simms was never better than in the sunny calm of Super Bowl XXI at the Rose Bowl, completing 22 of 25 passes for 268 yards and 3 touchdowns in a 39-20 triumph over the Denver Broncos. But when the Giants reached Super Bowl XV, Simms was on crutches with an injured foot. His backup, Jeff Hostetler, guided a 15-13 win on Matt Bahr’s five field goals at San Francisco in the N.F.C. title game and a 20-19 triumph over the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV in Tampa, Fla.

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In the 2000 N.F.C. championship game, Kerry Collins threw five touchdown passes in a 41-0 rout of the Vikings at Giants Stadium, but in Super Bowl XXXV the Ravens’ defense hounded him into completing only 15 of 39 passes for only 112 yards with four interceptions in a 34-7 embarrassment in Tampa.

The Jets, for all of Coach Rex Ryan’s recent proclamations and promises, have yet to return to the Super Bowl. But over the years they advanced to the A.F.C. title game four times — once each with Richard Todd and Vinny Testaverde at quarterback, twice with their incumbent, Mark Sanchez.

Todd’s 1982 team eliminated the Bengals and the Raiders in the playoffs but got stuck in the Orange Bowl swamp created by a weeklong rain before the Dolphins’ 14-0 victory in the conference championship game. Testaverde’s 1998 team led by 10-0 in Denver but disintegrated in a 23-10 loss. Sanchez’s 2009 team lost in Indianapolis, 30-17; his 2010 team lost in Pittsburgh, 24-19.

That leaves Namath as the only Jets quarterback with a Super Bowl ring. Among the Giants quarterbacks, Conerly earned an N.F.L. championship ring in the pre-Super Bowl era, and Simms and Hostetler were each measured for a ring after a Super Bowl victory before Manning earned two. (Simms got a second ring for guiding the 1990 team to an 11-2 start.)

But which quarterback is New York’s best? If you go by rings, it’s Eli Manning. If you don’t, it’s Joe Namath.