Though Mike Mayock is currently out of the NFL business, no longer a TV analyst or general manager, he still appreciates what teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers did. Things that, frankly, Mayock’s Raiders had a difficult time replicating. Appearing on John Middlekauff’s 3 & Out podcast last week, Mayock said he admired the Steelers and Baltimore Ravens for their consistent draft philosophy that unsurprisingly, led to equally consistent and successful results.
“I always said John, I always knew that the Ravens and the Steelers, just to pick two teams, who drafted well for years,” Mayock told the show. “In the same division. They always kinda knew who they were. They knew what a Raven or a Steeler looked like and smelled like. I could look at a player in the draft and say, ‘That guy is gonna go to the Ravens.’ And he would…or ‘That guy’s a Steeler.'”
It helped that those teams had consistency at the top. For years, Ozzie Newsome ran the Ravens while Kevin Colbert headed the Steelers. With little turnover in the front office, the same scouts, head coaches, and general managers, it led to a philosophy that yielded similar results. For Pittsburgh, that meant drafting from the Power Five, players with high pedigree with production to match. Colbert espoused “hearts and smarts,” focusing on players with high character and eliminating prospects with character red flags.
And there were trends at certain positions. The Steelers liked their running backs big, capable of handling a full-time workload. Throughout the 2000s, they wanted physical corners who could tackle, though that idea has shifted in recent years to focus on athletes and playmakers.
Mayock also knew a guy like Colbert was generally going to play the draft pick hand he was dealt.
“I could tell you that for the most part that Pittsburgh, with Kevin Colbert, would have seven picks. They weren’t going to move up, they weren’t going to move back, and it was probably going to be a position of need in descending order,” Mayock said.
And that’s largely true. While Colbert was a bit more aggressive in trading up, those deals were infrequent, especially in early rounds. Only three times during his draft tenure from 2000-2022 did Pittsburgh trade up in the first round: 2003 (SS Troy Polamalu), 2006 (WR Santonio Holmes), and 2020 (LB Devin Bush). Trading down was even rarer, something Colbert didn’t do once over the final decade of his time as Steelers general manager.
While Colbert’s final few drafts weren’t as productive as earlier classes (though his 2017 group was among his best), Pittsburgh’s classes during his over 20-year tenure were as strong as any team in football. He found Hall of Famers like Polamalu and future ones in QB Ben Roethlisberger and OBL T.J. Watt while names like C Maurkice Pouncey and DL Cam Heyward have chances to be enshrined into Canton. We recapped Colbert’s draft history a few summers ago, a list we’ll update again later this year.
“That was a strength for those kinds of teams. They knew who they were. They knew what type of players fit them the most,” Mayock said. “And they stayed in that lane. And they always draft well.”
Omar Khan is about to embark on his second NFL draft. His first hit all the same notes as they did under Colbert. There were no smokescreens and the players they showed pre-draft interest in became their selections. Some differences were clear, Khan more aggressive making trades than Colbert ever was, but it was also just one year. Perhaps Khan’s approach will be different his second time around.
Catch the whole conversation between Mike Mayock and John Middlekauff below.
