Steelers Booth, Madden Cover, Power Rankings

The 2015 NFL Draft has come and gone and your Pittsburgh Steelers 2015 draft class is preparing to enter rookie minicamp. There are just a few more phases of the offseason training program before the team breaks in June before training camp. While the new Steelers get acclimated with the Steel City we’ll be busy looking for mentions of your Black & Gold so we’ve got you covered. Here’s your Steelers Morning Huddle for Wednesday, May 6^th.

Batch and Hoke in the booth

Two former Steelers players will be joining the KDKA-TV broadcasting booth this season. Charlie Batch and Chris Hoke have been hired to the team’s 2015 KDKA-TV programming roster, as announced today. Batch will take over for former Steelers defensive lineman Edmund Nelson, who is retiring, to join Bob Pompeani in the booth during preseason games.

Batch will also be hosting the regular-season pre-game show with Pompeani as well as the Steelers Radio Network post-game show. Hokie will co-host the team’s regular-season post-game show on KDKA-TV. If only Batch and Pomp can call all the Steelers game in the regular season too.

Beware of the Madden Curse

Now that the draft is over the next big thing to look forward to is the voting for the next cover of the Madden game. CBS Sports announces that EA Sports narrowed down the finalists for the Madden 16 cover to four players: Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski, Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr., Cardinals CB Patrick Peterson and Steelers WR Antonio Brown.

Brown is coming off of a monster season where he set personal and Steelers records left and right and when you think about it, something like this could net him a big payday and he may not be so concerned about trying to renegotiate his contract years before it’s up.

On the other hand, the last Steelers player to appear on the cover of Madden was Troy Polamalu in 2010. He appeared alongside Larry Fitzgerald but took the brunt of the infamous “Madden Curse”. After a Super Bowl winning season and multiple Pro Bowl selections, Polamalu sprained his MCL in Week 1 of the 2009 season and missed the next four games. Then played three more games and sprained his PCL, missing the rest of the year. Also the Steelers went 9-7 and missed the playoffs.

So take that into consideration before casting your vote for Antonio Brown for the cover of Madden 16. I think Gronk would look just fine on the cover, don’t you?

Post-Draft Power Rankings

All 32 teams just added a batch full of rookies that won’t even see a practice field with pads on till at least mid-July but let’s go ahead and update the Power Rankings anyway. ESPN has the Steelers ranked at No. 9 overall, two spots behind the Ravens who apparently had moved up four spots since their last ranking.

The Bengals are right behind the Steelers at No. 10 and the Browns are all the way down at No. 28. At least they’re not the Titans who came in dead last after drafting the reigning Heisman Trophy winner. Ouch.

Next: Steelers: Third Times the Charm?

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