This time of year is when players are supposedly rising or falling on the draft boards. Most teams have a complete list of their pre-draft visits available, and so the end of the intel-gathering process is complete, and the dots can be connected on which players seem to be generating buzz around the league. With just eight days to go until the 2024 NFL Draft, NFL Network’s lead draft analyst, Daniel Jeremiah, hosted his second and final pre-draft conference call with members of the media, and was asked which receivers could sneak into the first round.
“[Xavier] Legette’s mentioned a little bit, talking to people around the league. There’s a chance he goes late one,” Jeremiah said, adding that he still views the South Carolina product as a Day 2 prospect. “There’s a lot of love for [Ladd] McConkey and [Ricky] Pearsall. There’s definitely some Xavier Worthy teams.”
All of these prospects are of interest to the Steelers, and not just because they are top players at a position of need. Throughout the process, each one of these players has had demonstrated interest in them by the Steelers. Legette and Pearsall were confirmed pre-draft visitors. McConkey was reported as a pre-draft visit, though it hasn’t been fully corroborated. Worthy reportedly had an extensive meeting with the Steelers at his pro day with WR coach Zach Azzanni in attendance.
Many have been viewing Worthy as a first-round guy ever since his record-breaking 4.21-second 40-yard dash at the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine. The other three have been mentioned as second-round players primarily, though their names have been showing up in mock drafts at the end of the first round.
This draft is already historically deep with first-round WR talent. Jeremiah has 12 listed in his most recent top-50 prospect list. Over the last 10 drafts, there have been six first-round WRs on three different occasions (2022, 2020, and 2015). As the league shifts more and more toward high-powered offenses, most teams are always looking to add a quality receiving weapon to their roster. That 10-year high of six WRs is likely to be shattered next week during Day 1 of the draft. Ultimately somebody has to fall.
“It feels like every year there’s a couple of these guys that we have pegged as lock first rounders at the wideout position that teams just feel like because of the volume of wideouts, they can address some other needs and get one later,” Jeremiah said.
The Steelers could be in a similar position to what Jeremiah described, likely to wait until the second or third round to take a receiver so they can address positions that have less depth in the draft class.
Our Alex Kozora put together a study of all the WRs drafted in the Mike Tomlin era and their measurables and testing numbers to compile a list of players who “check all the boxes”. Pearsall was one of two does, and McConkey was one box away due to his hand size.
In addition to these players, Jeremiah named FSU WR Keon Coleman as another player some teams view as a late first-round talent.
The Steelers haven’t demonstrated much interest in Coleman, but they did have a formal meeting with him at the Combine.
Check out our scouting reports on these prospects:
– Ladd McConkey
– Ricky Pearsall
– Xavier Worthy
– Xavier Legette
– Keon Coleman
