Draft grades are a bit of a meaningless exercise, especially in the immediate aftermath of a draft before players have even played a down in the NFL. Too many things can happen that can radically shift teams’ eventual results with their draft classes to assign grades right after the fact. People will often point to the need for two or three years before assigning a grade is possible. CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco took a look at the 2021 NFL Draft and assigned new grades to each team with three seasons of data to look at, and he gave the Steelers a C-. Here is what he wrote about the haul:
“They had nine picks in this draft, and three would be starters if the season started today. They are running back Najee Harris (first), tight end Pat Freiermuth (second) and offensive tackle Dan Moore Jr. (fourth). Harris hasn’t come close to living up to the first-round hype, with a career rush average of 3.9, which makes this a questionable draft.
“Freiermuth is a good player, but Moore is a guy they would like to replace and could be out of a job this year after the Steelers took tackle Troy Fautanu in the first round this year. Fifth-round defensive tackle Isaiahh Loudermilk is a backup. They missed on third-round center-guard Kendrick Green, who is now with the Texans.”
Prisco initially gave the class a C back in 2021 but lowered it to a C-. The controversial pick in this draft was selecting Harris in the first round. He has been a solid player with three-straight seasons over 1,000 yards and zero games missed, but he hasn’t fully lived up to the first-round status.
The Steelers recently declined his fifth-year option, which was a big talking point at the time when he was drafted. If you are going to draft a running back high, the fifth-year option is one of the redeeming qualities of that decision. You get an extra year of team control at a position that is notoriously tricky to extend. That did not end up being the case in Pittsburgh.
Freiermuth is in line for an extension at some point this offseason. It seems likely to happen but isn’t a slam dunk. He will be a tricky negotiation as he had the least productive season of his career in 2023 with 32 receptions for 308 yards and two touchdowns on just nine starts with a hamstring injury hampering him for much of the season.
Moore outperformed his fourth-round status as a three-year starter on the team, but he is danger of getting replaced with the Steelers spending back-to-back first-round picks on tackles in the last two drafts. This is the latest draft class at risk of going extinct in Pittsburgh unless Freiermuth does indeed receive an extension. Pressley Harvin III was cut this offseason. Tre Norwood, Quincy Roche, Buddy Johnson, and Kendrick Green are also no longer on the roster.
That leaves Isaiahh Loudermilk as the only other player remaining, and he played very limited snaps last season.
If you are a glutton for punishment, take a look at the 2021 redraft exercise on the site where you can see which players were available during each of the Steelers’ picks. There are some pretty notable names that would have been very helpful to the roster, but the same can almost always be said.
