Every team has its own method of setting up its draft board, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are no exception. One thing they do that may be unique relative to other teams is they simulate a first-round mock draft in which only they make every selection as if they are drafting, up to their first-round pick. If they’re drafting 21, for example, they select the top 21 players they would take. Other teams simulate an actual leaguewide mock draft.
When it comes to the actual building blocks of a draft board, though, teams get more proprietary. Everybody has their own method and their own means. Teams will have different policies about players, and who to remove altogether, and for what reasons. The Steelers, as explains director of college scouting Dan Colbert, are cautious of the latter, at least in one aspect.
“I think you have to be careful not to discard certain players, because what happens is, even if they might not be a scheme fit for us, your board should still have integrity to it”, the son of former GM Kevin Colbert said. “If you start taking all the players that don’t necessarily fit our defensive scheme, then other players start rising up into places where maybe they shouldn’t belong. All of a sudden you’re looking at a guy who maybe has seventh-round talent in the fifth round”.
This was during a one-on-one interview for the team’s website, and Colbert was asked about the Steelers removing players from their board because they wouldn’t fit within their system. But his explanation for why they don’t do that makes a lot of sense. A draft is necessarily relative because you can only select draft-eligible players. But a “fifth-round” talent in a vacuum is still a “fifth-round talent”, even if he is the third guy at the position who fits your scheme.
“You have to grade players for what they are. You give yourself the option to look at them in certain places. It doesn’t mean you have to take them, but I think you have to protect the integrity of the board”, he said, offering a glimpse into the Steelers’ process. “We do talk about that at length. I just don’t think that you can necessarily move them up or down the draft board”.
Scheme fits can apply to any position, but it is perhaps especially relevant in a defensive front seven. No matter what system you employ, a 3-4 outside linebacker is not a 4-3, nor a 4-3 defensive end. The Steelers don’t run a lot of “base” defense, but they still need a 3-4 nose. And many 4-3 defensive tackles will not translate.
Even if you don’t violate the draft board, you still don’t draft players who don’t fit your scheme. But you also don’t want to overdraft less talented players who do. The value in the Steelers’ approach is that it helps clarify relative values across positions. The seventh-best wide receiver who fits their scheme, for example, may be more valuable than the second-best safety who does.
