Reloading will be hard - Steelers only have 5 picks in next year's draft

Hopefully they can trade a few pieces so we can have more than 5 draft picks next year.

Mitch?
Rudolph?
Claypool?
DJ?
Bush?

 

Quality is more important than quantity.

 

Yes, but you can package multiple picks to move up and draft a higher quality player. This is what elite teams do.

 

We are retooling. Just 1-20 pieces away from being a contender again

 

trade away a handful of average at best players for a handful of 6th and 7th round picks and use those to trade up? You spent a lot of time thinking this one through.

 

You are right, we should keep those "average at best players" on the roster instead of trying to draft some new ones who could have upside. My bad.

 

Again quality is more important than quantity

 

Ok, so having only 5 picks is good. Got it.

 

47% of all draft picks bust. So yes it’s far better to have 5 draft picks at the top of the round than a bunch of late round picks. Obviously there are the anomalies, but that’s what they are the anomaly not the norm.

 

But the choice isn't to have 5 picks at the top of the round vs 8 picks at the bottom of the round. We could have had 7-8 picks at the top of the round too. False dichotomy.

 

7-8 picks right

 

Most of those guys aren't worth anything.
DJ is a very good receiver, he shouldn't be traded

 

Most teams have 7 picks. Many end up acquiring more through careful draft management. The Ravens had 11 picks in last year's draft!

 

That hasn’t been the Steelers way. Literally all we had to was give the Cardinals who are Pittsburgh West a 4th or 5th and we get Metcalf over Diontae Dropson.

 

if you make those 5 count it should be plenty. priority UDFA's are also a big part of it. jaylon warren for instance. free agent pickups also add to this process. we are already a young team so just adding to this with even 5 will help.

 

They’ve got their first 4 picks, which is what really matters.

Rounds 5-7 are little better than UFDA signings. If they’re looking for bodies, the UDFAs have almost the same chance of having an impact as a 5-7 pick does.

 

We give the cardinals a 4th or a 5th for their first pick of the third round to draft a guy that went in the last pick of the second round. Makes perfect sense

 

Benny?

 

If they get a top 5 pick they should trade down.

 

Would not matter if we had 10 first rounders with Tomlin leading the team they are doomed

 

Patriots traded the 64 pick so the Seahawks could get in front of us and get Metcalf. For 77 pick and a 4th.

Cardinals had 62 and 65 pick. We could’ve traded with them 66 and 4th or 5th to get Metcalf. Cardinals still get their guys. Moving back 4 picks for a 4th is worth it.

 

What is the saying? "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"? I'm not saying its "awesome" that we have less picks or anything, but trading average but proven players for futures isn't necessarily always the best strategy. The whole term "upside" implies that they are worse players currently, but COULD become better players. For exercise purposes, lets say we trade Edmunds, Bush, Chuks, etc. and get a bunch of mid to late picks for them. Based off of averages, less than 12 percent of players drafted 5th round or later make a second contract in the NFL. Only 16% of 4th rounders make the same metric. So if we get 4 picks for those 3 players that are form 4th-7th round, we would expect that we would get 1 NFL caliber player that makes a second contract. If we do great, we get 2... poorly, zero. That's 3 players of varying levels of decent (I actually think Chuks is a pretty good player) for potentially 1 guy. And there's no guarantee that guy is as good as any of the guys we ship out. That's how teams are run into the ground. We have our top 3 picks and that's what matters most. We need to do well there before mortgaging too much for late round fliers. If we can get something for the likes of Rudolph, great. If we are moving on from these players anyways, fine, get something for them. But I don't think we need to be sending off too many folks for late round fliers.

The next two years will determine the next 10 years of this franchise's success. We can't afford to "blow it up" just for the sake of doing it. We would be better off making trades or cuts that open up MONEY. That money in the FA market that will allow us to augment this team's deficiencies while hitting on our first top 10 pick (based on record) in a long time. Metrics below on money savings with cuts (post June 1). I'm not saying we need to cut or trade any/all of these players but its something to think about (we would have 34.2m in space without cutting anyone at all). The best way to transform this team is to put REAL coordinators around Tomlin who have control over their side of the ball, possibly make some tough decisions on solid players, and utilize the draft and FA properly. IMO our biggest issue is team "culture" (saving this for a different debate). We need to figure out who is gone/who stays, and bring in not only good players, but the type of players you can win with.

Trubisky (8m)
Olszewski (2m)
Witherspoon (4m)
Green (1.1m)
Claypool (1.5m)
Wallace (4m)
Killebrew (2m)
Heyward (15.85m)
DJ (10.5m)

If it were me, I would prioritize CB in the draft. This defense desperately needs a top corner to operate efficiently. We move our DBs around and cause havoc in the secondary, however only Sutton so far has proven worth his salt (aside from the obvious with Minkah). Put a rookie opposite Sutton and if he pans out, we have a great secondary. Sutton is a very good player, and we can move our SS around based on matchups. Potentially Edmunds/Kazee, etc. or a FA signing. I would also get a FA ILB to play opposite Jack. Idk what we do with DL. Leal looks great so far, do we sign Ogunjobi and send Heyward for picks/cut? That brings us to OL. C, RG, and RT seem to be set to me. Could we draft a G in round 2? What about FA? LT could be a priority as well either in the draft or in FA. I like where we are at TE and WR (hope that Freiermuth can stay away from more concussions). I would ship out Claypool/Olszewski and work with Pickens at 1 and DJ at 2, Austin at slot and let Boykin and Sims have a bit of run. RB is what it is (still don't love taking Harris in the first) but we have him and Warren and that's more than fine.

 

You’re living in a fantasyland speaking for people you’ve never met

 

It’s a 3 year rebuilding program so they should have 15 picks or so to use.

 

As it stands now we have the#3 pick. If we were to hypothetically end the season there....I trade back...Ideally to where we could get the best or 2nd best left tackle (we'd likely get the second best LT as I think the kid from Northwestern goes early) and garner picks. And then pick best player available at every pick. We have so many holes and lack of depth that the only things we shouldn't draft is RB (because we have two young ones not because they're great) and WR (because we have a stable of them already and most are under contract for next year).