To date, the Pittsburgh Steelers have reportedly come to terms with five former XFL players and the signings of three of them were made official on Monday. On Tuesday, Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert was a guest on a Steelers Nation Unite fan question and answer session and during the call he was asked how the organization goes about evaluating XFL players as opposed to college players ahead of the annual draft.
“Well, you know, we have a pro scouting department and their job is to monitor players once they get in the National Football League and they also are responsible for the Canadian Football League,” Colbert said. “And of course, when the AAF was in session and the XFL, when they were up and running, it was their job to scout those players. So, they scout them and give us a current report on those players.
“But all of those players that played in those different leagues were scouted as college players at one point. So, we have a nice base of information. Most of them have been in an NFL camp and have played in preseason games, so we have evaluations on them.”
The five former XFL players that the Steelers have come to terms with so far, defensive end Dewayne Hendrix, safety Tyree Kinnel, linebacker/long snapper Christian Kuntz, defensive tackle Cavon Walker and tackle Jarron Jones, might soon be joined by a few others, according to what Colbert said on Monday.
“Right now, we have five under contract, we still have a few more in the works,” Colbert said. “But it was good that those players are made available to us because going through this draft as we are with some limited information, that could curtail some of the college free agents that we’re able to sign just on a knowledge of who they are type basis. So, knowing these players a little bit better, we feel it was important to add as many as we thought could help us in terms of being competitive players for training camp.’
In summation, expect the Steelers to add a few more former XFL players to their offseason roster moving forward.
