Idk about you..

But I loved our draft! A lot of good players!!

 

First Round- Tall, athletic cornerback with ball skills- Check- Just not the one every one wanted.

Second Round- Tall, athletic safety with ball skills- Check- Just not the one everyone wanted.

Third round- Strong, immovable defensive tackle who can transition to an end in passing downs- Check- Just not the one everyone wanted.

Fourth round- Offensive lineman who has tackle size and skills but can transition to guard- Check.

Sixth round- Defensive end/OLB with pass rushing skills- Check

Seventh round- "I don't care who as long as he can return punts"- Check

Seventh round- Inside Linebacker to replace Spence/depth- Check.

Looks like we hit all of the checkmarks. Could we have done better? Probably. Are they the choices I would have made? Not having gone in depth with meetings and everything like our front office/coaching staff, I'm pretty sure my first three rounds would have been Jack, Fuller, Billings.

But what I do know, and believe, is this: Artie Burns was our first round target. Not WJIII. And no, we couldn't have traded down with the Broncos, because he was also the Chiefs first round target. Is he a project? Yep. But so are WJIII and Apple. None of them was going to step in this year and be the saviour of the backfield. And if WJII had still been on the board and we had selected Burns, heads would have exploded.

Sean Davis was our target. Too many other safeties still on the board to say otherwise.

Javon Heargrave was our target. Anyone who thinks the Bengals stole Billings from us is just plain wrong. If we passed on him three times, and drafted another d-tackle ahead of him, we didn't want him.

 

I am not upset with the 1st 2 day picks but I felt we could have tried to trade back and end up with the same players while gaining more picks. I really felt this draft was strong in rounds 2-4 and a lot of the guys I liked went even later or not at all. I heard mentioned about the Clowns 14 picks that if you hit 50% I would rather have 14 picks then 7........

Picks 4-7 the only player I heard of was Matakevich and I am super pumped about that pick. Now after reading about these guys most show promise so I can't complain. I am pretty sure I never read any of the guys(except Matakevich) picked mentioned here and that was kinda weird. We usually get a lot of different opinions here and most of the time the guys we pick are talked about here.

We filled a ton of needs with guys that look like on paper very good players, I am excited as well. Let's see CB-S-NT-Returner-Oline depth-LB depth, the front office did a very good job filling our needs.

 

I get what you're saying about the trade backs, but that's pretty risky. I'll tell you why there was zero chance of us trading back in the first...

We were dead set on getting a secondary player in the first. Based on our visits we had first round grades on CB's Apple Jackson and Burns (I'm leaving Hargreaves and Ramsey out although we likely had higher grades on those two but knew we couldn't get them). We also had first round grades on S's Joseph and Neal. Now both safeties and two of the three corners had been taken in front of us. That left us with only Burns as a first round grade secondary player. Had we traded back we could've lost out on him with KC or a team in the early part of the second making a move back into the first ahead of us to snatch him. That would've left us with our other position options of DT Robinson/Butler, Edge Correia/Spence and WR Shepard as our targets there. We felt the risk wasn't worth the reward and just took Burns at 25.

The second and third rounds we didn't trade back because we got the guys we wanted. We had multiple safeties to choose from and took Davis. We had other DT's on the board and we took Hargrave. We're usually good at the draft... more picks doesn't necessarily mean more chance of getting a good player. We can agree on the fact that we did a good job filling out needs as a team in the draft tho. Love the positions taken.

 

Matakevich is getting a lot of people excited. I like the little I've seen.

How come he went so late, though?

 

I think it had to do with his speed. Ran a 4.8 at the combine I think. That's pretty slow, so he probably found himself labeled as a STer and 2 down LBer only. That's gonna hurt your stock in today's NFL quite a bit.

 

Solid draft, I can't say there is any pick I really disliked.

 

Looking back at it now, I am still holding out on Artie, but starting him right away does not make sense to begin with. Overall, I would give this draft an A. It is not the best draft by any means (Jacksonville KILLED IT), but it is hands down the best draft of the AFC North teams; Stannley, WJIII, and Corey Coleman all being non factors due to the likes of Dupree, Coates and Burns respectively.

 

This for sure. Plus he's short for an ILB at 6'0". The word I've read is that he can get to his drop zones to cover hooks/curls but may have trouble with vertical routes. I love the pick. I think he will be a special teams demon at the very least.

 

I think Baltimore and Cincy both had really good drafts.

 

They did. I am just stating that out of all the teams in the North, Pittsburgh does it again.. even though Baltimore was not that far behind.

 

I am not sure other observers feel this way, I would say Baltimore and Cincy did pretty well, if not better than the
Steelers,

 

Of course. Overall, on paper, Baltimore had the best; Cincy a close second. I am talking about more so about how they will pan out. Baltimore draftees usually pan out more than Cincy players do... at least recently anyway. I just believe that Pittsburgh's picks will make a bigger impact once their potential is realized.

 

I think you have to be realistic I dunno Cincy has been doing a pretty fair job for the past 3-4 years, Baltimore
has done a nice job also. These teams get paid also.

 

Bengals have been having good drafts for years now.

 

Never stated they did not. Just stating that more people are underselling Pittsburgh's draft due to Arite's skillset not fitting with what Pittsburgh is doing via the Cover 2...



.... which indicates a change is well on its way since the cover 2 did not do Pittsburgh many favors last year. A physical corner like Arite + his skillset may mean more man based coverages.

 

Go back and look at 2013, if we had a draft like that we would all be screaming, hit on the 1st two picks then nothing. Other then that they have been pretty good

 

This time, the Steelers drafted based on need. Maybe this was to maximize for the next couple of years (Big Ben timeline) to fill holes.

 

I am not sure that the guys picked behind Burns: Lynch, Clark, Garnett, Nkemdiche, butler and Ifedi were far off Burns do you? Not to mention the next CB picked was Howard and I would have puked if we took him. the more I look at it the more I think the Steelers made the right move.

 

these other teams did have good drafts but they have also lost alot that needed replaced.

 

Bengals are going to need an additional linebacker on their roster after Burfict has a freak injury in the Steeler game.