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Tiki Barber Interested In Playing For Steelers

Un-retired running back Tiki Barber, who has spent four seasons away from playing, indicates that he's interested in making his comeback with the Steelers (or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers):

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"We're not looking to turn this into an auction," [Barber's agent] says. "There are only a handful of coaches he would want to play for."

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Barber notes that the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tampa Bay Bucs are on that short list.

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I've had to write about these un-retirements a lot these past few months thanks to Pittsburgh coming up as a possible destination for Plaxico Burress and now Tiki Barber. (I even had to write a Brett Favre post for SBNation.com today.) So I'm probably more inclined than most to be dismissive.

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But it's really hard to see what any team, let alone the Steelers, thinks it might be getting here. Barber is well past the age when most running backs are productive. In addition, the Steelers have a good starting running back (Rashard Mendenhall), plus Isaac Redman and several other guys who might be productive as role players (including Jonathan Dwyer, Baron Batch and possibly Mewelde Moore). There's just no need for them to acquire Barber, thereby making Barber the key story of their training camp (assuming there's a training camp). As with the potential Burress acquisition, this is just a bad idea.

Photographs by dizfunk used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.