The journey toward Super Bowl LII ended far too prematurely for the Pittsburgh Steelers, sending them into offseason mode before we were ready for it. But we are in it now, and are ready to move on, through the Combine, through free agency, through the draft, into OTAs, and beyond.
We have asked and answered a lot of questions over the years and will continue to do so, and at the moment, there seem to be a ton of questions that need answering. A surprise early exit in the postseason will do that to you though, especially when it happens in the way it did.
You can rest assured that we have the questions, and we will be monitoring developments all throughout the offseason process, all the way down to Latrobe. Pending free agents, possible veteran roster cuts, contract extensions, pre-draft visits, pro days, all of it will have its place when the time arises.
Question: Which player that the Steelers have shown interest in would most frustrate you to see the team draft?
This is a fun one that I don’t think we’ve discussed yet. Talent evaluation, especially projecting the college level to the pros, tends to be a bit of a personal thing, and we all have our own opinions about which skill sets we feel are most important in predicting success in the transition from one level to the next.
There will always be differences of opinion not just of how a player’s skill set translates, but also how the player’s tape itself looks. Frankly we still see that in the NFL, with opinions sometimes varying widely on the same player. Sean Davis and Artie Burns are pretty polarizing players at the moment.
And so we all have our college players we like in spite of popular opinion as well as the players we don’t like, even though everybody else seems to. What I’d like to see us do today is talk about which players we might soon see in a Steelers uniform that we would be disappointed in.
I would rather focus solely on the player in this case rather than where the player is drafted. For example, for somebody who likes Mason Rudolph but doesn’t want the Steelers to take a quarterback in the first round, that’s not what I’m getting after.
Still, Rudolph would obviously be one player to frustrate many members of the fanbase based on evaluation alone, as well as based on roster makeup. Derrius Guice would fall into a similar category. Rashaan Evans and Leighton Vander Esch among possible first-round prospects fit the bill as well.
Dane Brugler’s recent seven-round mock draft didn’t go over very well with many here, with multiple people commenting on the number of players with questions about speed. There is virtually no winning with a league-wide seven-round mock draft, though. You virtually assure nobody will be happy with you.
