Brandon Boykin???

Just as a quick spot check, the Pats have 2 players remaining from 2008, 3 from 2009 (not really a fair comparison, as they had 4 2nd round picks and a few 3rds as well).

 

From year 1 to every 4 or 5 years rosters generally have a lot of turnover. The Steelers roster from today will be vastly different from the roster in 2019 or 2020. Retirement, the draft, injuries, and free agency all play a role in the changes that take place over the years.

 

missing on everybody in two drafts is not good. usually you have a hit or two which makes up the core of your starters down the line of 5-7 years. especially if you do it like the steelers usually do without diving into free agency much. we have seen an upturn in the free agency diving lately and it could be a direct cause from missing in those years.

 

we had brown too that wasn't able to step in for him. that was the last multi- corner draft until this year i believe. as for NE, they were terrible at drafting players for the most part. they picked some strange guys not rated very high on occasion and would dump them only to make good deals trading a vet and bringing in guys that were free agents that worked out well for them.

 

I don't know what your definition of 'impact player' is, but I'm struggling to identify who the 'mulitiple' players you reference are outside of Brown and Beachum. Bryant, if he continues to develop and can lay off the herbal. Harrison, I suppose, though at his current age is no longer the impact he once was. Injuries last year coupled with a lack of talent and depth at OLB this year have him a place on the roster. He's still solid in rotation, but again, not what I would consider a high impact player at this stage in his career.

Regardless, Harrison's original run with the team is outside the scope of moves I was considering (last five years or so, give or take). This site has a list of past drafts for easy reference; I'd suggest scrolling through the last few years. There are a lot of players that didn't even see it past the final round of cuts their rookie season. Naturally the expectatons and odds of a player making a significant impact at the pro level decrease the deeper one goes down a draft board, but the Steelers have had some flame outs in the middle rounds that are concerning, imo: Archer, Richardson, Johnson, 2014; Shamarko (as it appears presently), Jones (ditto), Hawthorne, 2013; Ta'amu, Rainey, 2012; Brown, Allen (again, as it appears now), Carter, 2011; Gibson, Scott, Butler, 2010.

Then there are some of the roster moves via trade/FA. We discussed Boykin and Scobee; the Cortez Allen contract is looking like a whiff right after Keenan Lewis moved to NO; the Emmanuel Sanders situation was another I couldn't comprehend - namely, if they weren't going to keep him long term, why match the Pats offer and forego a 3rd round pick? Landry Jones has now been with the team three years, but can't be trusted to run the offense for a few games if Ben goes down. And the guy we traded a pick to move back up and select shortly after Jones is still buried pretty deep on a depth chart that isn't exactly impressive.

At the risk of sounding overly pessimistic, there's just a lot of inefficiency going on here to my eyes. It's not just that mid to late round picks aren't having a significant impact, they're having trouble seeing it past their first preseason. And then there are the picks being thrown away at players who either can't crack the starting lineup, or, in Sanders' case, are here and gone at season's end. If this team wants to become a strong, consistent postseason contender I think a lot of these issues need to be resolved.

 

Amen brother, can't do it.