It’s still hard to know for sure if the Pittsburgh Steelers will ultimately draft a quarterback this year and general manager Kevin Colbert certainly didn’t tip his hand on the matter when he talked to the media on Wednesday at the 2017 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.
During his morning media session, Colbert was asked if this year is possibly a good one to select a developmental quarterback due to Ben Roethlisberger now being in the “latter stages” of his career. Colbert first addressed the age concerns of Roethlisberger in his response.
“I’d hate to say hes in the late stage because I hope he plays forever,” Colbert said of Roethlisberger. “But he is getting older, he’s getting better, he was hit less this year than in any year in his career. So, chances are that he will extend his career, we dont know how long it will go.”
As for the Steelers potentially drafting a quarterback this year, Colbert was very vague in his response as you would probably expect him to be.
“You’ve always got to be prepared to select a quarterback at some point,” Colbert said. “And he’s [Roethlisberger] aware of that. We’ve talked about it. He understands that hey, if we add a guy into the mix, we’ll do that at some point. But it doesn’t change the way we scout. We scout the entire draft class, we dont do it by position. Every year were going to scout the top quarterbacks, even when Ben was a younger player. We have to be prepared to stack the draft board regardless of the positions or where your team is at a certain point.”
