How many times have you seen former Penn State tackle Olu Fashanu mocked to the Pittsburgh Steelers this offseason? Probably not a lot. Well, Nathan Jahnke of Pro Football Focus has done just that in his most recent mock draft for the site. Oh, and he mocked Fashanu at 20th overall as well and thus not part of a first round trade-up.
Here is Jahnke’s explanation for mocking Fashanu to the Steelers at 20th overall.
“The Steelers are one of two teams to average less than one trade per year involving swapping draft picks, making it likely they stand pat at 20. One of their biggest needs is at tackle where Dan Moore Jr. and Broderick Jones had PFF offensive grades below 60 including pass-blocking grades below 50.”
While the Steelers certainly could use another tackle at some point during the first few rounds of the 2024 NFL Draft, it will come as a huge surprise to many if that player winds up being Fashanu and mainly because the Penn State product is expected to be off the board come the 20th overall selection.
While the Steelers have brought numerous tackles in for pre-draft visits these last several weeks, Fashanu was not one of them. The Steelers obviously know who Fashanu is at this point in the process and on top of that Dan Colbert, the team’s Director of College Scouting, went to the Penn State Pro Day several weeks ago.
For most of the offseason, Fashanu, who measured in this offseason at 6060, 312-pounds with 34-inch-arms, has been regarded as one of the top three tackles in this year’s draft class. Usually, you’ll find him second or third in most tackle rankings behind Joe Alt. That still didn’t stop Jahnke from predicting a recognizable first round fall for Fashanu.
In case you’re curious, Jahnke has Alt, Taliese Fuaga of Oregon State, and Troy Fautanu of Washington as three offensive linemen being selected ahead Fashanu. Some speculate that many teams might consider Fautanu a better guard prospect, however, or even a center candidate.
At Penn State, Fashanu played in 29 games with 21 total starts. He played left tackle primarily as well. As far as 2023 season went, Fashanu was voted a consensus All-American selection, the Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year, a First Team All-Big Ten selection. The 2023 Penn State team captain was also voted team MVP in 2023 as well. He’s a very clean prospect in a deep-ish tackle draft class.
Fashanu, according to PFF, did not allow any sacks during his college career. That was 689 regular season pass blocking attempts and 44 more in postseason action. That’s probably yet another reason to think that Fashanu will be long gone by the 20th overall selection in the first round.
For whatever it’s worth, Ross McCorkle did the scouting report on Fashanu for the site earlier in the pre-draft cycle and his final projection was for the Penn State product to be an early day-one selection. The over/under draft spot this week for Fashanu is 14.5, according to odds released on Tuesday by Circa Resort & Casino.
Should, however, a fall down to 20th overall for Fashanu take place, it’s hard to image the Steelers bypassing such a gift. Even so, I’ll believe such a thing happening when it actually does.
Stranger things have happened before but when it comes to late pre-draft process mock drafts from sites such as PFF, it doesn’t get much stranger than Fashanu falling to the Steelers at 20th overall.
