Hall of Fame players Steelers could have drafted but did not

The Steelers could have drafted a future Hall of Fame Guard but decided to draft a Defensive End instead

In the 1988 NFL draft, the Steelers selected Aaron Jones, DE-LB out of Eastern Kentucky, in the first round.  In his five-year Steelers career, Jones started 22 out of 67 games in which he played, tallied one INT, and 9.5 sacks.  Jones never made a Pro Bowl over his nine-year NFL career.

With the pick after the Steelers selected Jones, the Minnesota Vikings drafted a guard out of Arizona State who would be voted to twelve consecutive Pro Bowls, would be voted All-Pro seven times, and would ultimately be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009.

Randall McDaniel, the aforementioned twelve-time Pro Bowler, was a ‘rock’ on the ‘O’-line for both the Vikings and for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the last two years of his stellar fourteen-year career. McDaniel started 220 of the 222 games in which he played.

Although McDaniel has a very unconventional stance, his play was anything but unconventional. He was an athlete playing the guard position.  I can only assume the Steelers felt comfortable enough with the guards we had on the roster at that time, but, quite frankly, none of them were on the same level as McDaniel and none of them had the career that McDaniel had.

Considering that the Steelers currently have two modern era ‘O’-lineman currently in the Hall of Fame, it would be nice to be able to boast about having three modern era ‘O’-lineman currently in the Hall of Fame. We flat out missed on drafting McDaniel.

Let’s keep our discussion going.