Kevin Colbert

it may have been said in another post and i missed it but i wanted to say that i am so glad he is with us. i dont know why but he seems to be more vocal and i like what i am hearing. just wanted to say it. i hope he is with the steelers for many more years.

 

Well, I'm sure he isn't too happy how last season turned out, and his last 3 drafts have been less than Steller. So I'm sure he isn't happy with himself either. Between drafting problem player and, his 2 out of 1st three picks last year missed time due to knee injuries. He knows he needs to draft starters, not just role players.

 

i dont thin he can blame himself or us blame him for injuries.. you cant predict that when you draft a player unless they have a history or injuries which the 2 you refer to did not..

HINES

 

Last year's draft is too early to grade, right now it looks promising particularly thanks to Paulson and Beachem, however it's not looking good before that.

Cameron Heyward and Ziggy Hood were first rounders and really need to start looking like it. Jason Worilds gets 1 more year before I label him a bust.

2008 in particular is just awful...
Mendenhall
Sweed
Bruce Davis
Tony Hills
Dennis Dixon
Mike Humpal
Ryan Mundy

If you go back and look at drafts, there's very few where we got more than 1 or 2 solid picks.

http://www.nfl.com/draft/history/fulldraft?teamId=3900&type=team

 

Oh wow...that is REALLY bad

 

Lol yea i remember that draft, everyone (media) was saying we had the best draft out of all the teams that year. lol

 

I always thought he was okay, but I think he is lying when he says the steelers did not have a divided locker room.

 

There is a difference here...that draft was not bad it just turned out bad. That draft looked extremely promising, at the time, and there is no way anyone could have predicted how it turned out. If someone says they saw that coming they are full of s###!

 

Your boy better hit a home run in this draft,
many weaknesses on this current team.

 

HOLY COW! You do realize that 16 of 21 draft picks from 2009-2011 are still with the team and contributing right?

 

i know this is not all colbert but i read somewhere that since 1995 the steelers have hit on more 1st rounders than any other team in the nfl. I am trying to find the article and when i do i will post it. it was a pretty good read.

 

Heck, they contributed so well we went from 12-4 to 8-8. 16 more pics like this and we could probably get to 4-12.

 

I was about to say the same thing, Jim. Of that draft, 2 players were/are serviceable back ups (Dixon and Mundy - alright, Mundy stinks, but he's still on the depth chart). Hills stayed around for a while. Mendenhall was our starting RB last season.

The real disappointments were Davis and Sweed. Sweed - well, I'm pretty sure that whatever happened to him couldn't have been predicted. There was a lot going on there that we'll never know about. Davis was just a fail.

 

Huh? I'd say it looks particularly promising because of the first two picks. DeCastro and Adams could turn out to be among the biggest steals in the draft last year. If Spence can never recover that would be a huge shame, but it doesn't make him a bad draft pick. Ta'amu is obviously to be determined, but has the potential to start for us someday.

What has Worilds done that has not lived up to expectations? He was a good special teams player for us immediately and has always been stuck behind James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley. He led the team in sacks for most of the season last year playing part time. If you want to say he should have beaten out either Harrison or Woodley by last year, I guess we'll agree to disagree. I'm still not nuts about the pick because I wanted to go ILB at the time (and I believe Navarro Bowman and Sean Lee were on the board) but everyone else was flapping their pieholes about how we had no depth at OLB. I don't put a thing on Worilds. He will never be as good as the other two guys have been for us, but both of them (until last year) have played at high first round level, not mid 2nd round level. Dropoff should be expected when replacing one of the best players to ever play his position.

I get that Ziggy is not what we are used to getting in the first round. He isn't a superstar and won't ever be. But he's been a good player for us, and in my opinion I'm not sure we reach the Super Bowl without him in 2010. In years past, whenever Aaron Smith went down, the entire run defense collapsed (Nick Eason, Travis Kirschke filling in). When Ziggy was the one stepping in, it stayed strong. I'm not saying he's Aaron Smith, I'm just saying he's better than he gets credit for. He's playing a pretty crappy position. Keep in mind that most people still don't know who Aaron Smith is.

Heyward has looked pretty good to me every time I've seen him. If we want to complain about him not seeing the field, complain to the coaches. That's how they do things. We know this.

Someone else already said this, but really only two or three of those picks were bad. Davis and Hills were whiffs. Hills (like Dixon) was a former first round prospect who'd been badly injured, and that just didn't pan out. I don't know what they were thinking with Davis. I was screaming the second they made that pick. No one could have predicted what happened with Sweed, and I put more of that on the coaches than I do the draft pick (mismanaged by coaches, mental breakdown, repeated injuries during comeback). Mendenhall was a good pick that people around here are too stupid to understand (and getting stupider!). I think Humpal's career ended in a training camp injury (?) and although Mundy sucked last year, he was very solid for us for 4 years before that. People forget that before he was around, our entire defense fell to pieces if either Clark or Troy missed a single snap. He played solid ball and rescued us from Tyrone Carter, allowing the defense to continue functioning when one of our starters went down. Not everyone has to be around forever making plays forever to be a good pick. I think Ryan Mundy overachieved for a 6th round pick.

Here's what I see:

2012
1-2. DeCastro & Adams - Two projected long term starters (possibly very good, DeCastro with HOF potential). Both contributed as rookies, too.
3. Spence - Role player and potential future starter who suffered unfortunate career altering/ending injury.
4. Ta'amu - Role player and potential future starter with fairly unforseeable off-field issue.
5. Rainey - Rookie contributor and good role player who blew it off the field.
7-7. Paulson & Beachum - Borderline role player/starters in the 7th.
7-7. Clemons & Frederick - Not good enough. Four 7th rounders don't make it onto a decent team.

I count 4 good picks, 2 of them great, and 3 more that were risky with high upside, 2 of which are still alive and 1 of which suffered a brutal injury. Can't complain about this.

2011
1. Heyward - Role player that has shown flashes of very good stuff, including a pass rush. Plays behind starters. Future starter.
2. Gilbert - Immediate starter and good player with room to get better.
3. Brown - Role player and project with some potential (look at how long Ike and Lewis took to be worth anything)
4. Allen - Starting ability, likely a good future starter.
5. Carter - Role player that was getting better and better pre-injury.
6. Williams - 6th round "bust".
7. Batch - Role player.

I count 5 good picks, and one that is totally up in the air and will be determined in the next year or two. Lots of room to grow for all of them.

2010
1. Pouncey - Das good.
2. Worilds - Role player and potential future starter.
3. Sanders - Starter/role player.
4. Gibson - I still don't know wtf happened here.
5-5-7. Scott & Butler & Worthington - 5th and 7th round "busts".
5-5. Sylvester & McFadden - Role player and starter that helped us get to a Super Bowl.
6-6. Dwyer & Brown - Role player/starter and starter that earned a $42 million contract early.

I count 5 good picks, at least 3 of them great, and 1 awesome trade. 1 more pick that is so-so. Some of these guys are still getting better.

2009
1. Hood - Disagreement here among some, but an entrenched starter. Most agree he's at least a solid player.
3. Urbik - Not NFL ready but got there in time. Cutting him was the bigger mistake.
3. Wallace - Starter who outplayed his draft status by about 10 miles.
3. Lewis - Starter and looking like a great one.
5. Summers - Badly mismanaged and cut after being named starter.
5-6-7. Burnett & Harris & Shipley - Not good enough players and cut.
7. Johnson - Starter that saw more time than he deserved.

The problem here is what happened after the draft. Summers was a good player the Steelers had no idea what to do with. Johnson was a bad player they kept around for 3 years. Urbik was cut after one year and clearly just needed a little more time to show he could play. And one thing people forget about Ziggy is that we were #32, and the pickings were slim. Look at who was chosen after him. When you consider our needs at the time and the value those players had shown at the time, it's hard to find someone better than Ziggy. Who are the best players chosen in the 2nd round? Unger? He didn't have the value to go there at the time. McCoy? We had just taken Mendenhall the year before. Byrd or Delmas or Chung? Safety was not an issue yet. Hell, the only problem I had with it at the time was that I didn't think DE was a big enough need, but I was proven wrong with Smith going down again and again.

I count 4 good picks, 2 of them great, 1 outstanding. The only problem with this draft is that there were no late round gems, which are hard to come by.

2008
Covered above. How far should we keep going?

No one gets more than 2 or 3 good players year in and year out. I think we do it enough. And when we don't, we balance it out in other ways. 2006 was a bad year, but we still landed a guy who we wouldn't have won a Super Bowl without. I'll take that deal. 2004 was bad overall too, but we got a guy that we wouldn't be winning jack squat without. 2003 was bad in terms of numbers as well, but we got Troy and Ike. Where would we be without them? By contrast, in 2002 we came away with 6 good players (Simmons, Randle El, Hope, Foote, Haynes, Keisel), but none of those guys were really great in the way the players we got in those "bad" drafts were (Ben, Troy, Holmes). If you looked back at teams that get all the drafting praise like New England and Baltimore with the same critical eye, do you think they'd be doing much better?

 

Injuries and completely changing our offense couldn't possibly have played into that.