3 drafts Steelers GM Kevin Colbert would like to do over if he could
By Tommy Jaggi
Kevin Colbert has been brilliant during his tenure in Pittsburgh, but here are three NFL Drafts the Pittsburgh Steelers GM would like to do over.
Kevin Colbert’s legendary career as the director of football operations and general manager of the Pittsburgh Steelers I finally coming to an end after a remarkable 23 years with the team. For some fans, Steelers football pre-Colbert is hard to remember.
Over the course of his very respectable tenure as the team’s GM, Colbert produced some impressive draft classes and selected some legendary players like Troy Polamalu, Ben Roethlisberger, David DeCastro, and Cameron Heyward, and T.J. Watt.
Over much of the past two decades, Colbert was considered one of the best-drafting general managers in the league. However, it wasn’t always pretty. The good certainly outweighs the bad, but here are three drafts Kevin Colbert would like to do over if he could:
Steelers 2008 NFL Draft
We have to go back a ways to examine this one. The Steelers 2008 draft was exciting on paper. They took a big, explosive, athletic running back in Rashard Mendenhall, a tall rangy receiver in Limas Sweed, and even an intriguing dual-threat quarterback in Dennis Dixon.
Sadly, there wasn’t a single above-average starter out of the entire draft class. Mendenhall was inconsistent with fumble issues, and Sweed had some of the worst hands I’ve seen. He was never the same after his wrist surgery as a senior in college.
The rest of the group (Bruce Davis, Tony Hills, and Mike Humpal) never went on to do anything for this team. Safety Ryan Mundy was the only player who proved to be decent value of the group as a sixth-round pick. It also stings that RB Chris Johnson went one pick after Mendenhall in the first round.