While training camp hasn’t gotten underway yet for NFL teams and the NCAA football season has yet to kick off, Pro Football Network has released a seven-round 2024 NFL mock draft. With the Pittsburgh Steelers selecting 13th overall, Ian Cummings has the team selecting Alabama cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry.
“The Steelers did add a promising young CB duo in Joey Porter Jr. and Cory Trice in 2023. But Patrick Peterson won’t be around much longer, and simply put, if you have the chance to pick McKinstry, you take it. McKinstry has lockdown potential with his length, short-area quickness, and fluidity, but he turns potential into proven mettle with his tenacious physicality, technical efficiency, and swarming ball skills,” Cummings writes.
At 6’1 and 180 pounds, McKinstry is long and athletic and had 15 pass deflections for the Crimson Tide defense last season. But I just don’t see Pittsburgh going cornerback in the first round with where the team stands right now. Patrick Peterson will still be under contract for another season, and Joey Porter Jr. and Cory Trice Jr. will be given every opportunity to earn playing time. A first-round cornerback doesn’t make a ton of sense, even if Levi Wallace does depart in free agency after this season.
Besides McKinstry, Cummings has the team taking Georgia’s Sedrick Van Pran in the second round. Jonathan Heitritter profiled Van Pran as part of his Summer Scouting Series earlier this week, writing that Van Pran “is an athletic center who will excel in zone-blocking schemes thanks to his mobility and aggressiveness as a run blocker.”
Pittsburgh’s other selections in the mock were Penn State EDGE Chop Robinson in the third round, Georgia DT Nazir Stackhouse in the fourth round, Oregon WR Troy Franklin in the fifth round, Iowa LB Nick Jackson in the sixth round, and Howard OT Anim Dankwah in the seventh round.
If nothing else, Pittsburgh would win the draft on names alone, adding Kool-Aid, Chop and Dankwah to the team. But I’m really not putting too much stock into this one just because there’s so much unknown with how the NFL or NCAA season will go to really dive deep into a seven-round mock draft.
While Cummings tried to account for some of the unknown, with Drake Maye surpassing the heavily-favored Caleb Williams as the first overall pick, it’s just too early to predict anything. I’d be shocked if the Steelers were drafting as high as No. 13 to begin with, so a guy like McKinstry could be off the board before their actual first-round selection (and again, I really can’t see them going cornerback in the first round).
We’ll see how things play out during the 2023 season before people start busting through walls in Pittsburgh.
