What positions are in play at pick #20?

yes but one game does not define the overall quality of the players. no watt either. 15 tackles by our ilb'ers. 13 by our DL. 7 by our OLB'ers. *** i have said this for a couple of years that watt for as good as he is rushing the passer, sometimes he is a liability in the run game. highsmith as well. in that game taco had 4 tackles, truszka had 2 and highsmith had 1. when we play that hybrid two down lineman defense and use our OLB'ers as DE's basically we give up run lanes. that's scheme. that's also why the ILB'ers are ragged on for making tackles 5 yards down the field. our OLB'ers are not setting the edge when they are the line of defense on the edges.

if one area doesn't do it's job it affects other area's. we were and have been terrible at adjusting. against the browns first game we shut them down rushing the ball. watt and highsmith had 10 tackles. the inside LB'ers had 14. DL had 10. SS had 5. those are the guys that stop the run. we held them under 100 yards for the game.

the chargers game we held their RB's to around 60 yards. herbert had 90 of their 159 yards rushing. again no watt in this one. 3 of the top 4 tacklers for us in this one were CB's. highsmith had 6 which isn't bad but taco had 2 and truzska had 1. DL had 6 and that was cam and wormley. we were in that nickel hybrid crap most of the game. it left rush lanes for the qb. again scheme.

 

My only concern is you don’t know what you are going to get with Alualu or Tuitt nd we don’t know when Cam is going to hit the wall. I wouldn’t say Dline is a priority but if a good pick is available I wouldn’t pass him up either.

 

If it is scheme related then we need linebackers that can shed blocks better because we aren’t asking the Line to take up blockers and were playing without a nose tackle. Thats why I believe we need a bigger mack linebacker like a Leo Chenal. In addition we forget how good Mike hilton was at defending the run. Losing him hurt us big time.

 

I said no....Freaking...way Stingley falls 2 us.

 

I don't agree with that sentiment. If we are taking a QB in round 1 or 2, we are taking that guy with the hope that they will be the future of the franchise. Just because draft "experts" have a early-mid round 2 grade on him doesn't mean that he is a bad pick at 20 and a good pick at 52. He either turns out to be good or doesn't, and that's the determining factor on whether you want to pick him. If the Steelers think that Ridder can become a high end starting QB in this league, then I am cool with us taking him at 20. There is almost zero chance Ridder is there at 52. If we want him, we either draft him at 20, or give up future capital to move up from 52 to get him when he's available.

Drew Brees wouldn't have been a bad pick at pick 10 just because he had an early round 2 grade. I don't take the media's rankings very seriously. If any of them were scout caliber, they would be GM's and Front Office guys instead of media personalities.

 

That's fair. I just don't want to over prioritize something when we have other areas. However, I do see what you are saying. If there is a guy there we absolutely like, I wouldn't hate it.

 

You make a good point but part of the art of drafting is also trying to take players within the realm of how the rest of the league views them so that you don’t reach on said player. If Ridder is looked at as a mid round two value and we think we could get him there, I believe we take the risk of waiting and going for a more sure pick in the first round. A miss on a QB in the first round really stings. There are loads of players every year that get drafted in the middle to later rounds and when you look back on it they could have been drafted in the first. The bigger issue here is the Steelers don’t have the luxury of missing on a QB in the first round this year with so many holes to fill. I believe they should have a little faith in Trubisky and coaching him up and go for more sure picks in the draft. My fear is the Steelers are talking themselves into Ridder at 20 because they really want to draft a QB not because they really think he is a great QB. Their desperation is skewing how they view these QB’s and rate them because they are so desperate for one. Tomlin lived one year without Big Ben and my fear is he doesn’t want to repeat that experience so they are bound and determined to draft a QB no matter what this year. Honestly as much as I like Najee they were bound and determined to draft a RB in the first round last year. I worry they draft from a place of fear instead of logic. The smarter choice last year would have been to go Online earlier.

You watch they will draft Ridder in the 1st this year and miss out on a good safety or MLB or WR and they will have to settle for mediocre players. The defense won’t grow into what it could have as a result and we won’t have a top tier WR to supplant Dionte so will do the irrational thing and pay Dionte a boat load of money to stay. Bad draft choices have a ripple effect. The other thing here is you draft any of these QB’s outside of Pickett and they all need coaching and development. I don’t even know if the Steelers are capable of developing a QB. They really have not had to develop one in 18 years. Not to mention outside of Ben they haven’t been too great at drafting and evaluating QB’s either so I am not confident in their evaluation of Ridder. I would much rather build an elite defense which I know we can do and beef up the run game and run a ball control power offense with play action. Once we get to that point then exhaust all your resources in trying to find a franchise QB. Heck even at that point I am fine with them reaching for QB’s. But now is not the time.

 

next year is the time to trade up for a QB

 

Not much to add....IMO you're right on

 

100% agree

 

IMO....Drew Brees bombs out of the league it He doesn't go 2 the Saints with Coach Payton

 

With the career he had its hard to imagine that, but you're absolutely right. The Chargers were a consistently bad team at the time...without that trade ,who knows....

 

His career wasn't very great with the Chargers. That's why they drafted Rivers (really E. Manning).
This guy also has played about 80% of His games indoors. Hell there are years He has only played 2 games all year outdoors. Had a northern outdoors team picked him up after His Chargers time I believe He been out of the league. Also His great offensive Coach built that offense around all that. IMO

 

why wait until next year? we have 2 qb's at the moment. one for this year and next and one for this year. we should wait until we have only one for one year on his contract? not happening. what happens if these so called super stars from next year have a down year like howell did? i don't see the logic in waiting and the kid having to possibly step right in as a rookie if trubisky gets hurt. no experience, not really knowing the playbook. thrown to the wolves much like mason was. he at least was in his second year, barely. next year it will be tomlin and our new GM going to all the pro days to pick one.

 

That is flawed logic. So we are going to draft based on fear and not on talent? The talent pool next year is supposed to be much better. Experts are saying that if Trubisky came out this year as a rookie he would be the number one QB. That gives you an idea of the talent pool. I don’t see a lot of upside to the draft class other than maybe Willis and part of me feels it is a little bit of pie in the sky thinking we can turn him into the next Mahomes.

 

what experts are those? nothing guarantee's next years crop will be any different. last year howell was the number one qb ranked. he lost players around him and had good year but not a great year so now he's just fodder? nobody knows who the next mahomes will be. mahomes hasn't been all that great without a team around him either. he's good don't get me wrong but so is rodgers. they both have one supper bowl win. jared allen is supposed to be all that too but he's won nothing. nor has herbert from LA. heck tom brady was a 6th round pick. he's got more than all these top picks the experts say are so good. that's flawed thinking my friend. there is no guarantee that we get the top guy next year either.

 

I get what you are saying, but a miss on any pick in the first round is a disaster. Typically, good QB's don't last into the second round (especially to pick 52). Cousins, Garoppolo, Wilson, Romo... really Wilson is the best of these by far and Romo was pretty good too. Garroppolo and Cousins are average to above average (I think Cousins is much better of the two). I would've added Brees, but he was pick 32 (a second round selection at the time, but a first round selection now). You kinda always pay a premium selecting a QB, we just have had the luxury to not have to do that since 2004.

If we don't think Ridder is worth 20, then don't take him. I'm totally fine with that. Take someone else that will help the team and worry about QB down the line. But dont skip him at 20 then trade 52 and our 3rd rounder along with next years 2 to move up to 32 to get him because we loved him as a prospect, but passed hoping he would magically fall to us because the media has him listed lower than out pick. That would be idiotic. I'd rather just take him at 20 in that scenario.

Reaches are analyzed after performance. You can call a player a "reach" right after the draft, but if he meets and exceeds his draft stock then he wont be labeled a "reach". Everyone has forgotten about JJ Watt being a "reach" at the time for Houston.

 

Well just from this comment alone....says We should build the team up 1st. I mean You made the case....Yourself.... for the people that want the team built 1st. Reread what You just wrote.

 

It was actually quite fine though. His first two years weren't the best, but his last two years he threw for 51TD and 22INT combined. Got 5th in Offensive Player of the Year voting in 2004 (2005 was his last year with SD). He was still a very good player, he just was on a team that's main focus was getting the ball to LaDainian Tomlinson (which was of course, a good focus to have). SD drafted Rivers after Brees' first few years were disappointing, but had they just waited they might've not needed to draft Rivers at all. Brees' 2004 and 2005 were pretty good, but they had already taken Rivers so it was time to let him walk. They just got too impatient with Brees' development.

Brees was an immediate success in NO, not throwing a single season under 4300 yards until 2018 and only had 3 sub 30TD years in that same span (2006,2007,2017). He was the great player, he just needed a bit more time to become who he is. SD gave up on him after 3 years, they were wrong about that.

 

So .... I guess You forgot about Him getting benched while playing for the Chargers. There was talk about how weak his arm was since the day he got picked, and as the seasons grew colder how His production dropped off. Which all points...IMO....that He went 2 an indoor team....that has Years where He has only played 2 games outside the whole season,....and going 2 one of the best offensive mind Head coaches....saved his career.
Questions....Do You honestly think.....Ben, Brady, Rodgers(just 2 name a few)....if they played 80 % of their games indoors .....that their stats wouldn't be even better than they already are????

 

Yeah, he did get benched in his first two seasons of starting. I definitely said that his first two seasons starting weren't the greatest. I can't even fault the Chargers for giving up on him when they did. They just were wrong in the end. Thankfully Rivers turned out to be a really good QB, so it ended up not costing them. I wouldn't say "saved" his career because Drew Brees would've been a great QB no matter where he played. Did going to an indoor stadium to a team that was cool with throwing it all day help his stats? Absolutely. But you said Brees would have bombed out of the league had he not gone to NO and had Coach Payton save his career. That is the part that is wrong. His last 2 years in SD would have made him a top 10 QB at the time (2004-2005). He had QB ratings of 104 and 89, threw far more TD's than INT's and did all this while LaDainian Tomlinson was racking up 25+ touches a game. He was 5th in Offensive player of the year voting in 2004 and was a Pro Bowler. He wasn't a bad QB, quite the opposite. San Diego just didn't play around Brees, they played around Tomlinson (which was a fine choice at the time). Brees still would have been an excellent QB had he gone somewhere other than the Saints, not out of the league by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe not quite as good as he was (since there was a stretch of time where he was in the same breath as Manning and Brady), but he still would've been one of the league's top QB's.

And no, I don't think it would have drastically improved Ben, Brady, or Rodgers to have played in a dome for their career. They all were known for their ability to throw extremely well in bad weather and it would likely have only impacted their career passes per game minimally to adjust their statistics. Ben threw for 500 in December in Pittsburgh back in 2009 against the Packers. The only way to improve any of these HoF QB's stats would be to have had them throw the ball more often.

 

I agree with much of what you are saying here. You basically have devalued the QB position with your argument and have supported my argument that these QB’s are nothing without a good system, good coaching and a solid team around them. So based on that logic why not draft best player available. If a QB happens to be best player available at your spot then draft him. But if you trust in your system and your ability to coach then why not coach up Trubisky and go with the BPA that isn’t a QB to support Trubisky and see what you actually have? Bringing young QB into our system now may actually hurt him if we don’t have a good team around him so using your logic it still makes sense to have the team nearly elite or at least very solid at most positions so when we do draft a young QB he has a solid network of support around him. Its like buying a corvette to drive on a dirt road. Right now the Steelers need to upgrade from a dirt road to at minimum some black top before they think of going out and drafting a QB other wise it is a wasted pick in my mind. When Chicago drafted Trubisky he did ok for them and then the coach tried to turn him into something he was not. The team he had around him wasn’t that great either. Who knows we could have a great QB in him but how will we know if we don’t build up the team around him first? Trevor Lawrence has superior talent to Mac Jones but who did better last year? Mac Jones landed in a system that knows how to develop and support their QB. Lawrence could possibly never reach his potential if Jackonsville doesn’t first solve the General Manager and Coaching issues they have. Obviously Jackonsville had to take Lawrence because you never now when you will be in that position again and he was a generational talent but I feel like to many teams draft QB’s as if they are the savior. I feel like it is lasy, desperate and fear based. There are only two teams in my mind currently in the NFL that are in position to mortgage draft capital and move up and reach for a QB. The Colts and the Titans. Both of those teams have solid coaching staffs and really good players on both sides of the ball with minimal holes. The Steelers aren’t those teams yet and we could be in a year or two if we don’t draft a QB and we are smart about building up the team. My fear is we are going to draft a QB this year and after two years of the guy foundering and not developing we won’t know if it is the coaching, the offensive system, the players around the guy, etc. and then we basically have to start over from scratch ... all the while wasting the careers of Heyward, Watt and Minkah. So basically what I am saying is the Steelers aren’t drafting first this year and their isn’t a generational talent like Trevor Lawrence at QB. Essentially all of these QB’s are a reach and Steelers can’t afford to take a reach right now.

 

Exactly...

 

The Steelers don’t care about what the rest of the league feels about a player. They have their own big board ranked in how they view players that fit their scheme and criteria. Worrying about what another team may or may not do or how they feel about a player is a fool’s errand. If the player they feel is the next franchise qb is sitting there at 20 or within their grasp they will select him.