I've been grappling with this one over the week too so I'll share my thoughts that led me to Petracca over Steele.. and the main one is the draw.
Starting with vs GWS, Steele's last 3 scores are 91, 149, 98.. 2/3 stinkers and one monster.. mixed bag but shows enough to suggest he has copped attention when playing them. Wouldn't be unreasonable to see him score 90-100 this week.
Next up.. Port, and despite being pretty woeful, they don't actually give up massive SC scores to midfielders.
Round 1 vs Brisbane - Neale 140, no others over 100
Round 2 vs Hawthorn - none over 100
Round 3* vs Adelaide - Dawson 123, Crouch 116, Keays 113
Round 4 vs Melbourne - Viney 100, no others over 100
Round 5* vs Carlton* - Walsh 128, Hewett 111, no others over 100
*close games which has some super impactful late scaling.
Outside of Neale going beast mode in round 1, they often keep mids relatively flat. So Steele could play well and still hit a 90-105 point score.
If he does hit back to back 100's, then his form line could start to look eerily close to last season:
View attachment 43071
Meaning in a month or so he could be sub $590k (potentially lower) and at a great time for upgrading as the cows have hit max moo.
So basically, I don't think Steele is worth it right now at $640k - I can't see him massively increasing in price from here but there is a reasonable possibility that he drops $70-80k over the next month and get essentially be grabbed for the price Petracca is now.