Happy Good Friday to yinz.
I hope this weekly post continues to find everyone healthy and happy. It’s Easter weekend and we starred it off at noon with a large spread from the Honey Baked Ham company. We have ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet corn niblets, cranberries, rolls and two pies along with ice cream to keep us busy through Sunday. Basically we are doing another Thanksgiving as this is exactly what we do that weekend. It’s easy and it’s good.
The 2020 NFL Draft is now less than two weeks away from taking place. Alex Kozora and I had Dave-Te’ Thomas on The Terrible Podcast Friday morning and that was a blast. I hope everyone gets a chance to hear interview. I have about 10 more players I need to watch tape of and then I should be ready to release my final Pittsburgh Steelers mock draft of the year.
As usual, I have five questions for yinz to answer this weekend and I look forward to reading all of them. I hope all of yinz have a blessed Easter weekend and thank you to all that visited the site this past week.
Peace and love, peace and love!
1 – Name me three players who you think have a great shot at being drafted by the Steelers this year.
2 – Between Steelers defensive tackle Cameron Heyward and guard David DeCastro, which of the two was the biggest All-Decade team snub?
3 – Is the 2005 highlight below of Steelers safety Troy Polamalu his best play that never seems to make his highlight play reel? Do you remember this play?
4 – Yes or no on the 1933 jerseys?
5 – Are you happy or sad that it now looks like the Steelers won’t be featured on HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks’ later this summer?
Recap of 2020 First Weekend of April Friday Night 5 Questions from David Orochena:
Question 1: Steelers Depot respondents ranked the top five running backs by either their overall talent or best fit for the Steelers. We ranked them in the following order:
1: D’Andre Swift – Georgia
2: J.K. Dobbins – Ohio State
3: Jonathan Taylor – Wisconsin
4: Clyde Edwards-Helaire – LSU
5: Zack Moss – Utah
We did have a few Taylor Swift entries who is fast and loose but not sure of her hands.
Question 2: Respondents picked T.J. Watt over Minkah Fitzpatrick as most likely to receive the 2020 AP Defensive Player of the Year award. 81.4% named Watt citing his ability to get to the quarterback. We love Minkah but noted that quarterbacks avoided him toward the end of the season. Sacks and interception galore! I like that idea.
Question 3: Respondents identified vision as the most important attribute/skill set an NFL running back should have. It was not close. Durability and ability to gain yards after contact or ability to break tackles were distant also-ran attributes.
Question 4: 75% of respondents believe the Steelers tight ends will combine to catch more than 65 passes in 2020. There was some concern about injury history but folks like the idea of Ben throwing the ball to this group. We must envision Heath Miller snagging balls out of the air in our dreams. Heath did average 54 receptions a season all by himself. HEEAATTTHHH!
Question 5: We rank Ben Roethlisberger anywhere from the best to about eighteenth among quarterbacks in 2020. The prevailing ranking was somewhere between fifth and eighth best. We named twenty different quarterbacks ahead of Ben in our individual rankings. Using an Ian Fleming quote, “Once is happenstance; Twice is coincidence; Three times is enemy action”, the nine quarterbacks mentioned less than three times. We ranked Patrick Mahomes ahead of Roethlisberger on 82% of our ballots. Drew Brees and Russell Wilson were tied for second with 68%. Aaron Rodgers garnered 54% of the ballot count. Ben ranks fifth since we named the remainder on less than 50% of the ballots. Tom Brady (46%) still appears in lots of folk’s nightmares. Lamar Jackson (36%) is a rising star as is Deshaun Watson (29%). Carson Wentz, Jimmy Garoppolo, Kirk Cousins, and Dak Prescott all were named enough to be considered dangerous hostiles.
It has been a tough week for America and indeed most of the world. While we should not be group hugging, at least have a virtual get together with friends and family. Take care and remember – keep that social distance.
