We are at the point in the NFL's offseason calendar where fans are getting antsy for their favorite team's training camp to finally begin. With weeks to go before most teams report to camp, many outlets (including us here at Still Curtain) have gone the route of looking back in time, revisiting past moments as we await new ones. CBS Sports' Zach Pereles recently took a crack at redrafting the 2024 NFL Draft, and it left the Pittsburgh Steelers feeling glad that it's just a thought exercise.
I won't pretend like taking on a full first-round redraft is an easy task, but Pereles' placement of two prominent Steelers picks (tackle Troy Fautanu and center Zach Frazier), as well as who he had them coming away with instead of them, was questionable at best.
Frazier came off the board 17th overall to the Vikings, much higher than the 51st pick the Steelers used on him in real life. With Frazier not available at the Steelers' pick at 20, it would make sense after a strong 2025 season for Fautanu to remain the pick in Pereles' redraft. Instead, however, he went in a different direction.
The Pittsburgh Steelers end up with Rome Odunze in 2024 redraft, passing on Troy Fautanu
Rome Odunze is a talented young wide receiver; there is no doubt about that. But Pereles choosing to have him head to Pittsburgh instead of his Washington teammate Fautanu is a strange choice. Perhaps it's due to a rookie season that saw the talented tackle miss essentially the whole year with a knee injury.
Even with that factored in, passing on a player who looks primed to be a franchise tackle for a receiver yet to crack 750 yards is hard to rationalize. One could argue that Odunze has suffered from a lack of consistent accuracy from his talented but erratic quarterback, Caleb Williams, but the numbers are what they are.
In 29 career games, Odunze has managed just 1,395 receiving yards and nine touchdowns on 98 receptions. Those are solid numbers for a No. 2 receiver, but not what the Chicago Bears were hoping for when they made him the ninth pick in the draft. Would he have fared any better in Pittsburgh during his first two seasons? Considering the QBs he would have been playing with, probably not.
Fautanu, meanwhile, fell all the way to the Chiefs with the 28th pick in this redraft. Considering players who have also suffered major injuries (49ers WR Ricky Pearsall) and play much less valuable positions (Texans S Calen Bullock, Packers LB Edgerrin Cooper) were taken several spots earlier, it's hard to come up with a logical reason for his slide down the board.
Overall, the Steelers should be thrilled with how the real 2024 draft turned out. Things could certainly have turned out worse.
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