The Pittsburgh Steelers clearly erred in 2019 when they traded up 10 spots in the first round of the NFL draft for Devin Bush. The sixth-year linebacker is likely now a career backup at this point. But it’s not the result that Seth Walder of ESPN criticizes in a recent article. Rather, he attacks the process by which the Steelers came to making the trade in the first place.
Walder explores a number of what he considers logical fallacies that teams have employed over the years to explain decisions to trade up. He cites comments that former Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert made as an example of the “We had extra picks” fallacy.
The Steelers did, in fact, have “extra” draft picks that year after trading WR Antonio Brown. They gained an extra third-round pick as well as a pick in the fifth. On top of that, they anticipated getting another third-round compensatory pick in 2020 for losing Le’Veon Bell. And that’s why, Colbert stated very clearly, they made that trade to move up from 20 to 10 for Bush.
“We said under no circumstances we would go into tomorrow (Day 2) with less than two picks”, Walder quotes Colbert as saying. “Without that trade, we would not have made this trade today. I feel comfortable in saying that because we wouldn’t have had enough picks to do it”.
The Steelers sent the Denver Broncos their 20th-overall pick along with their second-round pick in 2019 and a third-round pick in 2020 to move up to 10. Denver used the 20th pick to draft TE Noah Fant. They also netted QB Drew Lock and C Lloyd Cushenberry III.
Walder argues that “extra” draft picks are no less valuable than a team’s native draft picks. You’re not playing with house money just because you have more than you normally do. The reality is that you lost resources in exchange for those additional picks, in this case an elite wide receiver.
The Steelers thought pulling off that trade would land them an elite linebacker, of course. Devin Bush proved to be nothing of the sort, sadly, even after a promising rookie season. A torn ACL in his second season sent his career on a different trajectory but can’t explain everything away.
Pittsburgh actually ended up benching Bush at the end of his final season here in 2022. They had already declined to pick up his fifth-year option before that. When they played him last season against the Seattle Seahawks, he didn’t exactly impress. Now he is with the Cleveland Browns, where he figures to act as depth—for Cleveland’s sake.
But, again, the result is not Walder’s concern here. He started off the article by citing an example of a fallacy that yielded the desired result. Rather, he argues that the Steelers reduced their odds of success by making the trade.
“The Steelers made a pricey trade-up with a 64% premium, throwing away the equivalent of a fringe first-round pick if we don’t discount the future pick (and a second-round pick even if we do)”, he wrote. “Pittsburgh had a little surplus of picks, but by trading up inefficiently it let someone else reap the reward”.
