2015 Steelers NFL Mock Draft: 7 Rounds v6.0

Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

The Steelers have cornerback issues, and it would be an utter shock if their front office elected until the third day of the draft process to address that glaring need like they did last spring. William Gay is entering the final year of his current contract, and Cortez Allen is coming off of a disastrous 2014 season. Only exacerbating their dumpster fire of a situation is the fact that Ike Taylor’s career appears to be finished, and Antwon Blake and Brice McCain will also hit the open market as well.

For a player with only one year of college football experience under his belt, Quinten Rollins continues to impress me with every bit of film that I watch since he only played one year of college football. It is impressive to watch the inexperienced defensive back’s footwork, fluidity of his hips, ability to play zone and off-man coverage and his tenacity when it comes to supporting the run and tackling.

Overall, Rollins (5’11” 195 lbs.) performed well during his first and only season of football at the college level. The former point guard racked up 72 tackles, 4.0 TFLs, 16 PDs and seven interceptions for the Redhawks.

Of course, the former basketball player is nowhere near the type of finished product from a technique-perspective that many teams would like to see in a first round cornerback. He must get better at jamming receivers at the line of scrimmage, continue to improve his eye-discipline, fine tune his footwork and prove that he can keep up with faster receivers down the field on vertical routes.

In a perfect world, I would like to see the Steelers trade down into the early stages of the second round to pick up an extra pick or two so they could select a player like Rollins at a juncture where he could represent more value.

I personally have a second round grade on Rollins due to his lack of experience and questions about how soon he will be able to contribute on a consistent basis in the NFL. However, I would not put it past Pittsburgh’s front office and defensive coaching staff to be interested in Rollins’ skill-set and upside.

Next: Round 2