Former Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert was a guest on the North Catholic Athletics Podcast and was asked about his favorite players that he scouted and believed in despite not getting a lot of attention otherwise. He named former OLB James Harrison and former RB Willie Parker.
“We have two great examples of free agent players that turned into significant players for the Pittsburgh Steelers in James Harrison and Willie Parker. Both of whom had huge…Willie the longest run in NFL history in the Super Bowl and James Harrison probably the greatest play in Super Bowl history. And both were free agents. I used to always tell the scouts, ‘Hey, don’t brag if a free agent makes it. If they were that good, we should have drafted them.'”
Colbert also mentioned Troy Polamalu and Ben Roethlisberger, both first-round picks, but he said they were supposed to be good.
“When you pick ’em high, you’re expecting them to do great things. When a free agent does great things, that’s pretty cool. And with James and Willie, that’s really significant,” he said.
While it took Harrison a few years and a stint in NFL Europe to really become a standout for the Steelers, Parker really broke out during his second season with Pittsburgh after getting just 32 carries during his rookie season. Both Parker and Harrison were key pieces for Super Bowl teams with Parker’s 75-yard run in Super Bowl XL still the longest run in Super Bowl history, as Colbert mentioned, and Harrison winning Defensive Player of the Year in 2008 and going 100 yards on an interception return for a touchdown in Super Bowl XLIII.
Colbert’s perspective on telling scouts not to celebrate about UDFA’s making an impact is funny, but there’s also some validity in it. Finding a good undrafted free agent does deserve credit from the scouting department, but it’s more or less a shot in the dark. If a player was good enough and high enough on a team’s board, he would get drafted.
The Steelers haven’t a lot of success finding quality UDFAs in recent years, although RB Jaylen Warren has proven to be an exception. He surpassed 1,000 scrimmage yards in his second season in the league, just as Parker did in 2005.
While Colbert is right for his reasoning on why scouts shouldn’t make a big deal out of UDFA finds, it must feel good as a scouting staff to find players like Harrison, Parker and Warren. They’re players scouts identify as those who have traits that could make them succeed even if they might not be worthy of drafting in their opinion at the time or the team has other needs to address. In Warren’s case, Eddie Faulkner, Pittsburgh’s running backs coach, thought he was a draftable talent, but the team instead made him a priority as a UDFA and was able to bring him in.
It’s a credit to the individual players too as Colbert said they have to fight extra hard for every rep and then make the most of them. Undrafted free agents are typically pretty low on the totem pole coming in when it comes to getting opportunities, but it’s clear that the crop that becomes talented NFL players makes the most of their reps and shows something that keeps them around, even if takes some time to truly break out as was the case with Harrison.
Colbert’s reign as Steelers general manager produced two Super Bowl-winning teams, and while a lot of the credit goes to early picks like Polamalu, Roethlisberger and Casey Hampton, among others, they wouldn’t have been as good if the team and front office didn’t take a chance on players like Harrison or Parker as undrafted free agents. While they obviously didn’t expect those players to reach the heights they did, it is still a testament and a credit to their scouting work that those players became important members of the team.
