Throughout the pre-draft process, the Pittsburgh Steelers have consistently been connected to a handful of players, such as Oregon State tackle Taliese Fuaga, Washington offensive lineman Troy Fautanu, Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson, Duke center Graham Barton, and more.
Some of those other players include the likes of Georgia offensive tackle Amarius Mims, West Virginia center Zach Frazier and Clemson cornerback Nate Wiggins, all three of whom have some level of concern as potential first-round picks.
Fortunately, Pro Football Focus attempted to address some of those concerns.
In a piece for PFF.com Thursday morning, Ben Linsey addressed some of the biggest concerns for the trio of potential first-round picks for the Steelers. Those concerns, you ask?
For Mims, it’s quite clear: experience. He had just eight career starts in college. For Frazier, it’s health and best fit scheme-wise in the NFL. And for Wiggins, it’s about his weight, having checked in at 173 pounds at the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine.
Linsey, to his credit, tried to talk down some of those concerns.
With Mims, while he had just over 800 snaps in college, there are other players who have come out of college with limited experience that have gone on to have strong careers.
“Mims has one of the more interesting profiles in a sizeable tackle group that is expected to come off the board in the first round. He has some of the most impressive measurables you’ll see from a tackle prospect, performed well when on the field (75.0-plus PFF grades in the SEC in each of the past two seasons) but accumulated just eight starts and fewer than 1,000 offensive snaps before entering the draft,” Linsey writes. “Going back to 2017, Mims would be just the fifth first-round tackle with less than 1,500 Division I snaps, joining former teammate Broderick Jones, Penei Sewell, Garett Bolles and Ryan Ramczyk.
“Bolles and Ramczyk are the only two under 1,000 snaps, and they both played just one Division I season after transferring in from lower levels.”
Well, how about that? Jones, a current Steelers offensive tackle, a former teammate of Mims, and a first-round pick one year ago in the same conversation from an experience standpoint as Mims.
Of course, PFF pointed out that Jones played 1,396 snaps in college with 19 starts, which is more than double Mims. But he is one of just five tackles who played less than 1,500 snaps in college. Detroit’s Sewell was in the same boat with 1,377 snaps and 20 career starts.
The closest examples to Mims though are former Bolles, a former Utah tackle, and Ramczyk, a former Wisconsin tackle.
Bolles had just 13 starts in college and played 961 total snaps, while Ramczyk started 14 games with 978 snaps.
Mims, if he hadn’t dealt with the ankle injury that required tightrope surgery, would have hit those benchmarks, rendering this a pointless discussion. But the fact that he struggled with the injury and was limited raises concerns.
He might be viewed as a risk, but there is some precedent there at the offensive tackle position, and that precedent has worked out quite well at the NFL level.
Then, there is Frazier.
He is coming off of a broken leg suffered late in the 2023 season. Though he was able to return to the field and go through position drills at the Combine before then doing position drills and testing at the Big 12 Pro Day, there is some concern about the leg.
There is also some concern regarding Frazer’s athleticism entering the NFL and what scheme he would fit best in. Linsey tried to answer this ahead of the NFL draft.
“The leaguewide average percentage of runs that PFF charts as ‘man’ concepts — primarily consisting of duo runs — has crept up in recent seasons. The average sat at 16.9% in 2023, the highest it has been since PFF began charting run concepts in 2014. Frazier ties for the highest PFF run-blocking grade in college football on those runs since the 2020 season,” Linsey writes regarding the best fit for Frazier. “Over the course of his college career, Frazier graded out in at least the 50th percentile at the position on both zone and gap-scheme runs but would likely be best suited in a gap-heavy scheme that utilizes his power and flexibility.”
The gap-heavy scheme might not be the best fit for Frazier from a Steelers perspective since under new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith they will lean on inside and outside zone runs. Based on research by Steelers Depot’s Clayton Eckert following the hiring of Smith, run plays such as stretch, outside zone, inside zone, lead, pitch, and duo are staples for Smith. Outside zone, inside zone, pitch, and duo tendencies align similarly with Pittsburgh.
The Steelers have shown quite a bit of interest in Frazier overall, so it might not matter what his best fit is from a gap standpoint. But his power and flexibility would play well under Smith.
Then, there is Wiggins, one of the top cornerbacks in the class. However, he’s a bit small. He is much like Washington cornerback Emmanuel Forbes, who came out last season weighing 170 pounds at the Combine before going in the first round, inside the top 20.
Wiggins measured in at 173 pounds at the Combine but bumped up to 182 for his Pro Day.
“Wiggins has outlier speed (4.28-second 40-yard dash), but that result came with outlier size at 6-foot-1 (89th percentile) and 173 pounds (5th percentile). Dating back to 2006, just three defenders have logged at least 1,000 snaps at outside cornerback while being listed at 6-foot or taller and 180 pounds or lighter — Levi Wallace, Alan Ball and Ken Crawley,” Linsey writes.
The Steelers, obviously, have history with Wallace, who spent the last two seasons in Pittsburgh before signing with the Denver Broncos in free agency. When he was healthy, he was a solid contributor for the Steelers, putting together a strong 2022 season after four good seasons in Buffalo as an undrafted free agent coming out of Alabama.
But then the 2023 season was rough, leading to the Steelers letting him walk in free agency.
While Forbes went in the first round just one year ago, there were similar concerns with his durability at that weight in the NFL. NFL Insider Tony Pauline said there are similar concerns with Wiggins, with multiple teams believing that he is a “one-contract player” in the NFL due to his weight.
That’s certainly concerning, but in today’s wide-open NFL, maybe being a bit lighter is better at the cornerback position. Wiggins and even Forbes will be case studies in that.
