Steelers News: Fans vote on NFL Draft grades for each Pittsburgh selection
By Tommy Jaggi
The 2020 NFL Draft is in the books and fans have given their input on the Steelers selections. Here are the poll results and draft grades for each pick.
The Pittsburgh Steelers 2020 Draft class is officially complete, and there have been mixed reviews on many of their selections this year. Though Mike Tomlin’s team was without a first-round draft choice in 2020 thanks to the Minkah Fitzpatrick deal, there were plenty of fans who believed that Pittsburgh still reached on some of their picks.
I recently wrote an article with my initial grades for the Steelers 2020 draft. Now I gave the fans a chance to grade each selection. With over one hundred fans voting on each pick, here are the draft grades that were voted on for each player You can view the full poll results here:
WR Chase Claypool (2nd round): B
With 122 votes tallied, an overwhelming majority of fans thought that that the Chase Claypool pick deserved a ‘B’ letter grade. Though 29.5 percent of fans gave this pick an ‘A’, 56.6 percent gave it a modest ‘B’.
With such a big run on wide receivers, the Steelers missed out on players like Michael Pittman, Tee Higgins, and K.J. Hamler. It’s unclear if they would have favored any of those players over Claypool, but reports listed them as players on their radar. Denzel Mims and Bryan Edwards were two other receivers available that Pittsburgh passed on.
EDGE Alex Highsmith (3rd round comp.): B
With 124 fan votes, edge defender Alex Highsmith received a grade of a ‘B’ and nearly half of all fans who voted (48.4 percent) though he was deserving of this grade. Highsmith is a small-school player from Charlotte who is a lot of fun to watch on film.
Though many draft boards saw Highsmith as a reach in the 3rd round. Steelers fans who voted disagree. Many are undoubtedly betting on his upside, but it’s safe to say that fans are on board with this pick.
RB Anthony McFarland (4th round): B
With 125 votes, running back Anthony McFarland received a grade of a ‘B’, but just barely. 35.2 percent of fans thought he was deserving of this grade while 33.6 percent gave this pick a ‘C’.
McFarland is lightning fast on tape (as evidenced by his 4.44 speed), but he didn’t offer a lot in the passing game at Maryland and doesn’t fit the mold of a workhorse back in the NFL. I think many fans were hoping for more of a traditional ‘do-it-all’ running back in the draft.
OG Kevin Dotson (4th round): A
A majority of Steelers fans gave out their first ‘A’ for offensive guard Kevin Dotson. After 106 fans voted on the poll, more than half (55.7 percent) believed this was an ‘A’-worthy pick.
Dotson is a small-school guard who has extreme power and was a tremendous run blocker in college. Let’s hope his success translates to the NFL.
S Antoine Brooks Jr. (6th round): B
By most accounts, Antoine Brooks seemed like a solid value pick at this point in the draft, and many believed he would be off the board somewhere in round five. 52.5 percent of fans thought that the Brooks pick in the sixth round deserved a ‘B’ letter grade. He landed at a position with razor-thin depth, and he should have a good shot to crack the roster as a rookie.
DT Carlos Davis (7th round): C
Apparently, not all fans are enamored with the fact that Carlos Davis ran a 4.82 40 at 313 pounds at the NFL Combine. While I don’t mind taking the chance on the athleticism, many believed that Davis wouldn’t have been drafted if it wasn’t for his insane 40 time earlier this offseason. 38.8 percent of fans gave this pick a ‘C’.
Average draft grade: B
With four of six Steelers draft choices earning B’s (with one A and one C in the mix), Pittsburgh’s 2020 draft class earned a B as voted on by the fans. A majority thought that Kevin Dotson was the best value pick and that Carlos Davis was the worst pick in the draft this year.
Next. 2020 Draft: Steelers late rounders have limited upside. dark
Our grades don’t mean much at this point, and it will be important to go back and reevaluate this class after they have a few years under their belts. As of now, we could have done much worse than this. Let’s hope these players at least live up to the draft grades fans handed out.