Center is a position that traditionally doesn’t see many players taken high in the draft, by the Pittsburgh Steelers or otherwise. You’re likely to see about an average of one per year go that early. Consequently, it’s no surprise when you look around the league and see that most starters were Day-3 picks.
You wouldn’t know it by listening to how many talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive line, however. It is in absolute shambles because they released *checks notes* Mason Cole, apparently. And if they don’t draft Graham Barton, Zach Frazier, or Jackson Powers-Johnson, specifically, they are doomed to continued failure.
Or maybe there are actually some decent starting-quality centers available later in the draft? That’s what we’ve heard more and more in recent weeks from draft experts. The latest such take is from Matt Williamson, a former pro and college scout. He ran down a list of later center names with Tim Benz on the Breakfast with Benz podcast recently.
“Tanor Bortolini from Wisconsin, Beaux Limmer from Arkansas, Hunter Nourzad from Penn State. There’s a kid at South Dakota State, [Mason] McCormick, that’s a guard that can play center that’s highly, highly athletic”, he said. “I’m talking like, third round, fourth round for these guys, and no one talks about the center class outside of the top three, or maybe the top four with Van Pran, but I think they’re missing out. The more work I did on the center class…you can win a lot of games with a fourth-round center”.
Williamson was actually not particularly high on Sedrick Van Pran-Granger, interestingly enough. But he’s not the only person who believes starting-quality depth in this draft extends into Day 3.
And why not, when players like Tyler Biadasz are carving out careers for themselves? He is the center many believe the Steelers should have taken instead of Kendrick Green in 2021 in Round 4. The Dallas Cowboys are now looking to replace him after he left in free agency on a $10M APY contract.
Make no mistake, most starting centers are not draft picks in the first two rounds. It’s virtually impossible because so few of them actually go that high. That’s not a comment upon the quality of player available at center but the relative value of the position. A kicker who gets drafted at all is the cream of the crop, for example. Ordinarily, only truly special centers go in the first round, or at least extremely safe bets. That’s why there’s such a low bust rate at the position.
But the fourth- or fifth-best center in a class is still the fourth- or fifth-best center whether he’s taken in the first round or the fourth round. Granted, there are twice as many guards and tackles as there are centers.
If the Steelers can take a tackle like JC Latham in the first round, they may very well be better off than with one of the top centers. And one of those top centers could still be on the board when the Steelers pick in Round 2. The center-or-bust crowd refuses to believe that’s a possibility, but history indicates otherwise.
