By the numbers: How should we value the Steelers mid-round draft picks?

What is the impact of mid-round picks?

What is the answer, you ask? Well, to that I say “have a look at another table with more data.”  I know.  I know. It’s almost too much. So exciting. But as we look together, additional pieces of this puzzle begin to take shape.

The Bears have done well, picking 11 solid starters who earned the score of 3.  This represents almost double the league average and is tied with two other teams for the league lead during the time period studied. The Chiefs, on the other hand, have been slightly below the league average in this category but still acceptable, finding 5 solid starters. Both teams have been above the league average in busts.

But look at the elite players drafted in rounds 2 through 5 between 2010 and 2018. The Chiefs can boast 5 while the Bears have identified a single great player. Of those players, three have been critical cogs in KC’s offensive juggernaut: Tyreek Hill, Kareem Hunt (love him or hate him, he performed at an elite level for the Chiefs), and Travis Kelce.

The only other team to perform as well as the Chiefs when it comes to drafting elite players in the middle rounds would be the Seattle Seahawks, who assembled their own juggernaut on the defensive side of the ball with the likes of Kam Chancellor and Richard Sherman, not to mention a top 5 quarterback in Russel Wilson.

So how does this answer the question I asked at the beginning of this article, and what does it have to do with the Steelers? The answer is frustratingly ambiguous. It depends on the team.

For instance, I saw over and over again that teams with compensatory picks chosen near the end of a round selected players who busted more often than when picking in their normal draft position. This would indicate that teams with a philosophy of building through the draft, like the Steelers, don’t often see the return they’d hope when they lose a good player to free agency.

Beyond that, teams that are consistently successful already have a good foundation in place. Recall the span of 2004 through 2010. How many quality players did the Steelers draft, only to see them succeed elsewhere?

The team’s depth simply was so strong that rookies could not break the starting lineup, and often could not contribute as backups. At one point, James Harrison was Joey Porter’s backup.  Try cracking that position as a rookie.

And then there is coaching. The New England Patriots, long heralded as the masters of accumulating mid-round picks, score right along the league average for the type of players they select. They’re successful because they have the coach, the QB, and simply accumulate more picks in order to improve their odds.

The Steelers have had their own recipe. They’re great at picking wide receivers, as we all know. They also do a good job with running backs and linemen on both sides of the ball. They have a quality head coach in Mike Tomlin, a hall of fame QB, and have had enough depth that outside of their first-round picks, it has been difficult for rookies to crack the lineup.

That’s all well and good if it weren’t for that terrifying elephant sitting menacingly in the corner of the room.

In my next article, we’ll delve more deeply into the Steelers’ draft history when it comes to defensive backs of all kinds. It isn’t pretty and has skewed their stats so badly that on the surface, they look like a team that can’t draft in the mid-rounds at all.