Poor defensive drafting is to blame

The Steelers have missed badly in recent drafts (not counting this year's class because it's too early to call) when drafting defensive players.

In the last five drafts they have selected 24 defensive players. NONE of them made any impact plays yesterday. In fact only 12 of them are currently on the roster including Spence who washed out due to injury and came back this year.

Here's some of the premium picks that were big time swings and misses:

2012/ 3rd round/ ILB Sean Spence- injury led to this being a wasted pick
2013/ 1st round/ OLB Jarvis Jones- huge bust
2013/ 4th round/ S Shamarko Thomas- huge bust
2014/ 1st round/ ILB Ryan Shazier- injury led to this being a wasted pick
2014/ 2nd round/ DE Stephon Tuitt- maybe injured but invisible much of the year
2015/ 1st round/ OLB Bud Dupree- maybe injured but invisible much of the year
2015/ 2nd round/ CB Senquez Golson- huge bust
2016/ 1st round/ CB Artie Burns- still early but doesn't look very good
2016/ 2nd round/ S Sean Davis- still early but doesn't look very good

I put both Spence and Shazier on this list to show the impact of injuries in the draft strategies. The Spence injury led to that pick being wasted which led to spending more draft capital on Shazier. The Shazier injury will lead to spending more draft capital on ILB this year. Not necessarily the Steelers fault, but that is why they are wasted picks.

Same thing at the positions of OLB, CB, and safety. Missing with these picks led to chasing these positions over and over. Lack of quality players at these position led to yesterday's humiliating defensive performance.
They need to get better scouts for the defensive side of the ball.

 

Shazier was not a wasted pick. He played superb when he was on the field and an all-pro.
Spence , we really don't know what he would have been if not for the injury.
Burns and Davis are a good nucleus.
The rest I would agree totally.

 

Shazier was definitely a Pro Bowl player, but due to unfortunate circumstance he will likely not be playing next year.

That is why I said the pick was wasted. We will probably see another premium pick spent on ILB this year. Three premium picks spent on a position where only two start in six years of drafting is one too many.

Same with OLB. The wasted pick on Jarvis cost us another 1st on Bud (maybe another wasted pick) and a third 1st on Watt.

 

Without a new defensive strategy and philosophy, something that will only come with new coaches, they will continue to draft these players.

 

You can't pick on the Shazier pick. Totally unforeseeable.

But, they haven't drafted defensive of talent as well as they have offensive talent that is for sure.

 

Not picking, I'm only talking in terms of draft capital here.

 

Overall the defensive of drafting has not been good.

I lot of guys who I thought were up and coming really regressed.
Dupree. Tuitt, Hargrave, Burns mainly.

 

Shazier a wasted pick? Hardly. A DPOY candidate hardly constitutes as anything but a waste.


Artie and Sean Davis not performing up to par is another story all together. Artie especially. He needs challeneged and luckily, Cameron Sutton just may be that player to do so.


Bud Dupree is a very intriguing case. He was injured with his shoulder all season. Within the same vein, why Keith Butler did not allocate more inside stunts with him to capitalize on Bud's ridiculous explosive capabilities is beyond me.


All the more reason some form of philosophical revision is required on the defensive side of the ball. Some of the players we have currently are more predicated based on a "seek and destroy" mentality. Essentially, they are like the Predator from the "Aliens" series.


Until a new philosophy that allocates for a more simplistic yet efficiently complex scheme is tailored by both Tomlin and Butler, expect more of the same.

 

I guess we have a different definition of wasted pick. IMO, a wasted pick is a pick that doesn't live up to his draft status.

Bud Dupree, Mike Adams, Gholson and Jarvis Jones are wasted picks.

 

Much of our problems are from poor D drafting, the other major part is poor/loose leadership from the coaches and terrible play calling. That is it in a nutshell. Give this core team to Hoodie and he racks up ring after ring.

 

I think we need a new defensive philosophy. Do we dare fire Keith Butler for Rex Ryan?

 

You guys are missing the OP. Shazier wasn't a wasted pick, but now that his career is over it is still our loss, which adds insult to the bad drafting.

IMHO I think our success is our own worst enemy. I know personally, the past few drafts there have been guys I have really wanted that have been taken within a few spots just before us.

 

I like that idea. Rex was a lousy head coach, but he was a great defensive coordinator.

 

I mean I wanted the likes of Bryon Jones, Josh Jones, Obi Melifonwu, Gareon Conley and Kevin King. The former has been okay. The next three have not done anything yet or are just okay.


Kevin King however has a bright future. I state him but I also state this because I wanted T.J. Watt above all else.


In short? You are correct. Success is a double edged sword. You cannot get the players you desire. However, that is why there is contingency plans in place should those events happen.

 

Ditto. I can't consider a draft choice "wasted" if the player suffers an injury. That can happen to anyone. I'd happily say it didn't pan out for us, but I see that as different from wasted.

(A wasted pick is, say, taking a long snapper.)

 

I don't think the drafting has been an issue. I think its the coaches developing that talent. If drafting was the issue, then Cleveland would have the top defense every year.

Our drafting on defense has probably the same success rate over the entire league, you're going to have some hits and misses. For every Dupree there's a Watt. Do some of the priorities need tweaked. I think so, but I would think all teams could say that. Certain GMs have different philosophies and draft accordingly.

One telling point could be mid to late round drafting (or UDFA pick ups) and its relation to position coaches. This is where a skilled coach can develop some needed guys imo.

Let's look at picks from the 4th round on going from 2016 to 2011.

Lake - Doran Grant, Gerod Holliman, Shaq Richardson, Shamarko Thomas, Terry Hawthorne, Terence Frederick, Cortez Allen

Porter - Travis Feeney, Chickillo (promoted in 2015)

Olsavsky - Tyler Matakevich (promoted in 2015)

Mitchell - LT Walton, Dan McCullers, Nick Williams, Alameda Ta'amu

Porter and Olsavsky are tough to include since they are so new to their position.

Mitchell has LT Walton as very good depth, McCullers is a waste imo, but still on the roster. Nick Williams was poached off the PS so who knows, and Ta'amu was derailed by the driving stunt, but has bounced around the league, so give him a fail.

Who do you see that Lake has developed?? Cortez Allen, a maybe to optimists. Add to the fact that the position coaches have a hand in drafting/evaluating, I just don't see the results with Lake. Mid to late round drafting is not the major indicator of a coach's skills but it has to be included. If Lake can't produce one and is suspect in the early rounds (Burns and Davis), then what are you achieving by being stagnant.

I'm not sure if @Ender you are arguing that the evaluations sucked or how they performed after being drafted sucked. Maybe both?? I guess my take would be the evaluations are about average across the league, but how they performed after being drafted sucked for the DB grouping. Especially since he's had more attempts compared to DL. And in a passing league, the DB group has a major impact on overall defense.

 

wasted and ironic

 

We started drafting athletes and not football players.

Bud had all the height/weight/speed, but no college production. Same for Artie Burns, Sean Davis, etc.

Lamar Woodley for all the hate he gets on here, was a football player! He could set the edge, rush the passer, and had good football IQ. Foote had high football IQ. Neither were the fastest, tallest, or strongest.

 

Ok I can see many are hung up on the word "wasted". I was using it in the sense that we must use another premium pick to compensate for the original pick used.

In other words: even though we used a 1st rounder on Jarvis, he didn't provide quality play for 5-8 years so we had to use another 1st rounder on Bud.

Because of the injury to Spence we had to spend another pick on ILB to get Shazier. Because we are tragically not going to get 5-8 years of quality play from Ryan we will have to use another premium pick on the ILB position.

What I'm trying to say is that right now in this instant, we have made two top three picks of ILB in the last 5 years and neither will be providing quality play next year, thus those picks were wasted. I'm not condemning guys for getting injured.

 

I think the evaluations are bad. There has to be a reason we can draft seemingly 30 DB's over the last five years and get no impact players.

 

Burns imo made some plays yesterday. Davis isnt a bust. The defense is young. Dupree just played his first full season i think. Tuitt was disappointimg to me this tear but like u said, i am hoping health held him back not the fact he got paid.

I dont think they have drafted that bad. U cant predict injuries. Sutton is gonna be a good one. Williams was a solid find late in draft. Hargraves is good. They are young. Or that is what i think

Replace mitchell and get a stud in the middle.

 

If all the eval's are bad, you would think Lake would be able to make chicken salad out of chicken sheet at least one time in his 7 years here. But he can't and that is why we always tend to look at the FA route. Mitchell, Blake, Boykin, Cockrell, Will Allen, Haden

 

Coaching decisions played a huge part in our loss to the jags, and I'm not talking about during the game.
If we had Timmons, Deebo, and Shazier on the roster then we wouldve won that game. If we had cut mitchell and moats, .... we wouldve had a better defense. This team used to draft great and be geniuses when it came to picking up udfa's...but not now.
They did do a great job in trades and fa picks up but wont play them. Namely Wilcox. He cant be any worst then mitchell

 

What, and have Ryan quit after the first season because he doesn't win it all? No thanks.

 

Hey I loved Carnell as a player.....But as a coach ,he couldn't develop a roll of film!! Really is time for him to go...he's had enough of a chance