SCB Steelers Quick Hitters: The ‘Narrowing It Down’ Edition

Good Tuesday to you Steelers fans.

As the official team visits wind down for prospective draftees, the focus of the Pittsburgh Steelers becomes clearer. If you didn’t know, the Steelers typically have a very distinct way of attacking the pre-draft period. And when the Draft rolls around, their first round selection almost always falls into the same category.

• They draft guys from Power Five schools.
• They have had them in for pre-draft visits.
• They went to their Pro Days.
• They met with them at the Combine.

The last time the Steelers drafted a first round pick from a no Power Five school was when they selected some guy named Ben Roethlisberger in 2004. They also tend to like guys from either the SEC, ACC or Big Ten. Evander ‘Ziggy’ Hood was the only player taken from the Big 12 (Missouri is now SEC) and David DeCastro is the only player from the PAC-12. So if you’re going to try and break down exactly who the Steelers will draft then keep those things in mind.

As for the actual player? Right now there are only a couple who check all of the boxes. Nate Wiggins, CB from Clemson is one and Amarius Mims, OT from Georgia is the other. What we must consider is that under Omar Khan the Steelers have absolutely done things differently in many ways. Therefore, their pre-Draft processes must also be considered.

The Other Heyward

With the recent addition of tight end MyCole Pruitt, it is fair to consider the future of Connor Heyward. I dove into this subject last night to see how he might still fit and why.

Trading Back?

Every single year I talk about the Steelers and the possibility of trading back in the first round. This year I’m going to do the same thing and here’s why. Many of the players they’ve spent time looking at have grades in the low first to mid-second round. That suggests to me one of two things. They know there are teams desperate to move up (the Bills for instance) and they could be willing to move down and add an extra pick or two. The other possibility is that they could be thinking of moving up in the second round. Personally I’m not a fan of that move considering we have no fifth or seventh round picks, but I’m never against going and getting a guy you truly want and need. We shall see.

The QB “Timeline”

Yesterday, a reporter from New York tweeted out a 10-point ‘exclusive’ on how things went down with the Steelers, Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph and Russell Wilson. He cited one source for the information and I shared my thoughts on it.

Draft Prep

Click on this link which will take you to all of our Draft Profiles and Mock Drafts. We’ll start rolling out more profiles later this week.