With the 2018 NFL regular season now over, the annual mock draft season is in full gear and thus we can probably expect a new serving of them from the major media draftniks these next few weeks. Todd McShay of ESPN.com, who released his first 2019 mock draft in the middle of December, posted his second one on Thursday and this time he has the Pittsburgh Steelers taking an inside linebacker in the first-round.
After originally predicting that the Steelers would select Louisiana Tech defensive end Jaylon Ferguson in his first mock draft of 2019, McShay now has them picking Michigan linebacker Devin Bush 20th overall in round-one and below is what he wrote about the choice:
There’s a void in the Steelers’ linebacker corps without Ryan Shazier. Bush, an athletic every-down backer, has the instincts to play Shazier’s middle linebacker spot. With Bud Dupree and T.J. Watt also in the mix, this unit could be pretty dominant.
McShay’s ESPN draft counterpart, Mel Kiper Jr., also mocked Bush to the Steelers in his first offering of 2019 nearly a month ago so it’s not surprising to see McShay do the same thing. In fact, here is a video of both ESPN draftniks discussing Bush.
The Steelers could obviously use another young inside linebacker early in this year’s draft. That said, there seems to be some early mixed opinions when it comes to Bush potentially being a slam-dunk first-rounder this year.
Bush, who declared for the 2019 NFL Draft as an underclassman in December, recorded 191 total tackles, 1 interception, 10 sacks and 14 total pass breakups in the 38 games he played in at Michigan. 19 of his tackles resulted in lost yardage. Bush was named the 2018 Nagurski-Woodson Defensive Player of the Year by the Big 10 conference as well as the Butkus-Fitzgerald Linebacker of the Year. Below are his season-by-season grades that PFF has on Bush.
We have already profiled Bush for the site and you can read that offering from Josh Carney below.
Bush was credited with 5 passes defensed in 2018 and below are links to each of those plays for you to watch:
Bush PD vs Ohio State
Bush PD vs Indiana
Bush PD vs Rutgers
Bush PD vs Rutgers
Bush was also credited with 5 sacks in 2018 and below are links to each of those plays for you to watch:
Bush Half Sack vs Indiana
Bush Sack vs Michigan State
Bush Sack vs Wisconsin
Bush Sack vs Nebraska
Bush Half Sack vs Notre Dame
Bush Sack vs Notre Dame
