Steelers know what they are doing trading away their 5th-round picks in last two years

The Pittsburgh Steelers have been incredibly unsuccessful hitting on their fifth-round picks. Here’s why trading for Chris Wormley was the right move.

There have been a lot of complaints recently among both Steelers fans and Pittsburgh media as to why the Steelers have elected to trade away their fifth-round picks in each of the past two seasons for players in a contract year. The answer is pretty simple: Pittsburgh has been historically horrible in the fifth round of the NFL Draft.

Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert know this. Here’s a look at all of the players the Steelers have taken in the fifth round since 2009, according to Pro Football Reference:

While Jaylen Samuels and Jesse James are two recent success stories, Pittsburgh has hardly been good in the fifth round overall. The jury is still out on 2019 fifth-rounder, Zach Gentry, but 11 of the other 13 players that were drafted since 2009 have either contributed in a very limited fashion for the Steelers or not at all.

This brings me to my next point: The Steelers know exactly what they are doing trading these picks away.

Though at first glance, trading for a player like Nick Vannett or Chris Wormley in a contract year might seem like a bit of a head-scratcher, consider the alternative. Pittsburgh has had terrible success drafting in the fifth round, and half of the players they draft don’t even end up making the initial 53-man roster.

I give Tomlin and Colbert a lot of credit here. They know that it is more valuable to trade away a day-three draft pick and grab a proven player than it is to roll the dice on someone in the fifth round. If we go back even further, the lists of busts continue on with players like Cameron Stevenson, Omar Jacobs, Charles Davis, Rian Wallace, Nathanial Adibi, and Brian St. Pierre. William Gay was the only good player drafted in between this list of busts in the fifth round.

Though the Steelers got just one year out of Nick Vannett before he signed with the Broncos, even a 13-game rental of Vannett is more use than what they typically get from the players they draft in the fifth round.

It still remains to be seen how long Chris Wormley will stick around after Pittsburgh traded away their 2021 fifth-round pick for the Ravens defensive lineman and a 7th round draft choice. But even if he sticks around for just one season before hitting the free-agent market, it still doesn’t mean that it was a bad move by the Steelers. Let’s hope Wormley could prove to be the best use of a fifth-round pick the Steelers have made in a long time.