1. DL Isaiah Loudermilk
If we don’t see eye to eye on anything else in this article, perhaps we can agree on this. I really don’t know what the Steelers were thinking here. This one caught me completely off guard. Pittsburgh did not own a 5th-round pick this year in the NFL Draft; however, they felt so strongly that they needed to trade away a 2022 4th-rounder to move back up and take… Isaiahh Loudermilk.
In my opinion, the defensive line is by far the best and deepest positional group on the team. Not only do you have a pair of Pro Bowl-level mammoths up front with Stephon Tuitt and Cameron Heyward, but you have some quality pieces in Tyson Alualu and Chris Wormley. Behind them, the Steelers still have a few young players who have flashed at times in Carlos Davis and Isaiah Buggs.
Still, Pittsburgh found it pressing enough to jump back into the draft this year and sacrifice a 4th-round pick for Wisconsin’s Isaiahh Loudermilk. I did watch some Loudermilk tape prior to the draft, and I knew that this was a player that Pittsburgh could potentially be interested in. However, most analysts had Loudermilk anywhere from a 6th-round pick to a priority free agent, so using quality draft capital on him might have been a bad choice. I hope he proves me wrong, but this was my biggest reach in the 2021 NFL Draft.
I’m not immune to making mistakes when it comes to evaluating talent, but many of these players I thought could have been had for a later draft choice (with the exception of Harris). I hope they all prove to be worth the draft capital spent on them, but they’ve got high expectations to live up to.