The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2020 season is now in the books, and it ended in spectacular fashion—though the wrong kind of spectacular — in a dismal postseason defeat at the hands of the Cleveland Browns, sending them into an early offseason mode after going 12-4 in the regular season and winning the AFC North for the first time in three years.
After setting a franchise record by opening the year on an 11-game winning streak, they followed that up by losing three games in a row, going 1-4 in the final five games, with only a 17-point comeback staving off a five-game slide. But all the issues they had in the regular season showed up in the postseason that resulted in their early exit.
The only thing facing them now as they head into 2021 is more questions, and right now, they lack answers. What will Ben Roethlisberger do, and what will they do with him? What will the salary cap look like? How many free agents are they going to lose? Who could they possibly afford to retain? Who might they part ways with—not just on the roster, but also on the coaching staff?
These are the sorts of questions among many others that we have been exploring on a daily basis and will continue to do so. Football has become a year-round pastime and there is always a question to be asked, though there is rarely a concrete answer, as I’ve learned in my years of doing this.
Question: What was your least favorite Steelers pick of the 2021 NFL Draft?
For starters, I’d just like to apologize for my downtime today. I received a vaccination shot Thursday evening, and by the following day was feeling pretty lethargic. But of course I’m back up and running now, as you can see.
Continuing where we left off, the next logical question after previously asking for your favorite draft pick of the last weekend, what was your least favorite selection that the Steelers made over the course of the 2021 NFL Draft? Like last time, there are no rules or guidelines, just whatever you feel by whatever reasoning you choose to adopt.
There are a lot of people, for example, who do not believe a running back is worth a first round draft pick, even if they like Najee Harris as a player, and don’t think he will move the needle much toward improving the run game without improvements elsewhere in blocking.
A lot of people were scratching their heads when the Steelers traded a 2022 fourth round pick to move into the fifth round and draft defensive lineman Isaiahh Loudermilk, at a position most probably felt Pittsburgh didn’t even need to address. I suspect this will be a ‘popular’ choice.
Then there’s tight end Pat Freiermuth — or rather, the Steelers’ second round selection. While I’m sure it’s pretty widely regarded that he represents fair value where Pittsburgh drafted him, so many people wanted the Steelers to take an offensive lineman there. For people with fewer concerns, perhaps they just hate seeing teams use draft picks on specialists, as the Steelers did with punter Pressley Harvin III in the seventh round.
