5 questionable draft trends the Pittsburgh Steelers must rethink
By Tommy Jaggi
The Steelers are notorious for following specific tendencies each year in the NFL Draft. Here are five trends they must rethink.
Every NFL team has a certain way of doing business in the offseason and certain traits they look for in the NFL draft. Some teams have ‘thresholds’ that must be met in order to be drafted in a specific round or to be on their draft boards entirely. For example, teams may require their edge defenders to meet the threshold for arm length while others will knock cornerbacks if they don’t meet the height and length requirements they look for.
If you have been following the Steelers closely, over the years, it’s really not hard to get a solid read for the tendencies they look for at certain positions. Unfortunately, following many of these has not worked out in their favor recently. Here are five draft tendencies the Pittsburgh Steelers must rethink moving forward:
Only take big running backs early in the draft
I don’t know what is with the infatuation that Pittsburgh has with big running backs. There are plenty of successful NFL teams who don’t seem to follow this at all, yet it’s something that is a must for the Steelers when drafting a running back in the first three rounds.
Le’Veon Bell and James Conner were both at least 230 pounds coming out of college, while Benny Snell and Jaylen Samuels both weighted at least 224 pounds, according to MockDraftable. The only player currently on their roster who doesn’t follow this trend is Anthony McFarland (208 lbs), but he was a day-three pick.
If the Steelers continue to draft like this, then players like Christian McCaffrey (202 lbs), Dalvin Cook (210 lbs), and Alvin Kamara (214 lbs) probably won’t be on their radar, and it likely means that Pittsburgh will not even consider a player like Travis Etienne (205 lbs) this April.