Looking at the Pittsburgh Steelers’ actions throughout the pre-draft process, there is a wide array of players and even positions that could feasibly be taken on Day 1. It’s impossible to ignore that they they’ve shown interest in first-round quarterbacks, and that has dominated the conversation surrounding the Steelers for the last week. If you ask Pittsburgh-Post Gazette insider Ray Fittipaldo, there still isn’t a great chance that quarterback ends up being the team’s pick in Round 1.
He was asked Wednesday what percentage he thinks it will end up being a quarterback at No. 21 overall.
“I’m not totally out because you can’t discount the fact that they only have two on the roster right now, but if I had to say percentage chance, I think it’s low, five to 10 percent,” Fittipaldo said via 93.7 The Fan’s Morning Show. “I don’t think that much of a likelihood at all.”
He still believes that a defensive lineman is the Steelers’ most likely pick. I don’t necessarily disagree, but pre-draft visits have been pretty indicative of the Steelers’ intentions in the past and they only used one on a first-round defensive lineman. The fact that Kenneth Grant and Walter Nolen didn’t have pre-draft visits in Pittsburgh really makes you wonder.
Breaking down the pre-draft visitor list, here are the first-round prospects by my estimation.
– QB (2): Jaxson Dart, Shedeur Sanders
– RB (1): Omarion Hampton
– WR (1): Matthew Golden
– DL (1): Derrick Harmon
– EDGE (1): Shemar Stewart
– CB (1): Azareye’h Thomas
– S (1): Nick Emmanwori
That doesn’t scream first-round defensive lineman to me. They’ve done their homework on an awful lot of late Day-2 and early Day-3 defensive line prospects, which tells me they are prepping for the potential of not addressing the position in the first round.
The quarterback position seems to have as good a chance as any to be the Steelers’ first-round pick.
If reports are to be believed, Mike Tomlin really likes Shedeur Sanders, and we all know how much influence he has on the decision-making process in Pittsburgh.
“You have to be careful with all of the speculation now about Shedeur Sanders and Jaxson Dart and the Steelers because there’s only a few people in that building down in the South Side who even have access to the draft board. There’s all kinds of chatter out there. It’s called lying season for a reason,” Fittipaldo said. “Even if a Shedeur Sanders or Jaxson Dart is available at 21, unless all their other top targets are off the board, and I have a hard time believing that’s gonna happen, but unless that happens, I don’t think they’re gonna go quarterback.”
For what it’s worth, Fittipaldo said basically the same exact thing about the running back position a couple weeks ago. If quarterbacks and running backs are both five to 10 percent, that tells me his degree of confidence in a defensive lineman is at least 70 to 80 percent. The lack of pre-draft visitors in that group tells me that could be an overestimation.
