Steelers draft recap 2008

Draft 2008 has come and gone for the Steelers (barring any strange 7th round trades as we technically have no picks left). Overall I like what we did this year although, as usual, it was not scripted exactly how I thought it would be.

In general, I think we gained momentum as the draft went and were in high gear through our first 4 picks. Then, with the 5th pick we kind of went sideways but were able to pull it back together to have a pretty good set of picks. But I get ahead of myself: first the picks and then some analysis.

RD PK(OVR) NAME POS SCHOOL
1 23(23) Rashard Mendenhall RB ILLINOIS
2 22(53) Limas Sweed WR TEXAS
3 25(88) Bruce Davis OLB UCLA
4 31(130) Tony Hills OT TEXAS
5 21(156) Dennis Dixon QB OREGON
6 22(188) Mike Humpal OLB IOWA
6 28(194) Ryan Mundy S WEST VIRGINIA

Even though some of my “draft needs” weren’t met, my premonition of us taking a running back in the first round came true. Upon reflection I’m okay with that. I said I wouldn’t be upset if we did I won’t be. When you think about it, even though we picked him as the 4th running back with the 23rd pick, he is probably the 2nd or 3rd best running back in the draft. How can you possibly argue that taking the 2nd best RB at pick 23 of the first round is a bad idea?

In keeping with their strategy to go with the best player they took Limas Sweed in the 2nd round. Even though I wanted Hardy he was long gone by this time. Actually I’m pretty surprised Sweed was still here and again, you can’t argue with going with him considering we’re down to 2 reliable WRs (Ward and Holmes) and a couple questionable ones (Washington and Reid). So even though I was still hoping for O Line or D Line with this pick it’s really hard to argue with what happened.

Same deal with pick #3. Sure, I would have preferred O/D Line. But if Linebacker Bruce Davis was really the best on the board compared to the O/D Line talent why not pick him? We are pretty thin at Outside Line Backer so we need one of those as well. NOTE: I guess he’s really a Defensive End but we’ll convert him to OLB.

After this point in the draft I started thinking, okay, we’re hitting the groove. Not only are we taking the best players available when we pick (like we promised we’d do) they are now also starting to line up with our needs. Then came the 4th pick and I was ECSTATIC that we picked on Offensive Tackle. YEAH we finally got an O Line guy!!! Maybe he won’t start (and maybe he won’t even make the squad), but at least we have a warm body in there that can challenge a roster spot.

Now I was really thinking that this could be the best draft of all time (well, maybe the best draft since the 70s anyway). Until the 5th pick. A quarterback. Better yet, a quarterback who blew out his knee already (or something like that). Do I like this pick? No. Am I mad for them making it? No. Listen, I know we need another QB on the roster at the very least to put on the practice squad. We only have 2 QBs with our back up getting older every year. So we inevitably have to pick up a young practice squad eligible QB at some point this offseason but you hate to use a 5th round pick on him. This is where I dreamt some guy walks off the street at training camp and the club goes, “wow, this guy looks promising, let’s sign him”. But, I’m sure he was the best on the board at the time so we took him. I really do wish we’d have ignored that strategy, though, for this round and picked a D Lineman.

In the 6th round we picked another linebacker. Again, no problem here. I’ve seen him listed as an inside and outside linebacker so I don’t know which he really is. But no matter, you will NEVER see me complain about picking a LB up in the 6th round. NEVER.

Finally we rounded it out buy using our 2nd 6th round pick which we aquired when we traded down in the 4th round. We used him on a safety (WVU represent!). I also have no problem with that. Ryan Clark may never come back from that spleen surgery. While I was WAY big on Anthony Smith at the beginning of last season he has shown us nothing that would now instill me with any confidence after his abysmal play in the 2nd half of the year when he took over as the starter. So how can you argue with taking a safety (especially one that apparently can play cornerback as well)? I can’t.

That said, we made it through a draft where I wanted 3 linemen (2 O and 1 D) and we only picked 1 Offensive Lineman. So how am I okay with this? I guess because I can’t argue with any of the selections as I go back and look at them. That and I guess that I missed one point this offseason that I didn’t think about until today. When Hartwig was signed to play center, we didn’t get rid of Mahan (who sucked as our center last season). Then I recalled that he also plays Guard (I think). That being the case, maybe we plan on using Mahan as a starting guard? Or maybe Stapleton or Caprizzi, our two young, developmental O-lineman are ready to take the next step this year? Who knows, maybe the Steelers front office see something that I can’t. Either way, with Mahan at guard and drafting a Tackle in the 4th round we might be okay. At least I sure hope so!!!

But what about the D line? We didn’t draft anybody? Who is going to step up if Smith, Hampton, or Kiesel goes down? Not Kirtchske or Eason (at least they didn’t last year). Is the young McBean ready to go this year? Who the hell else is there? I really think we are gambling with our D line this season and that makes me REALLY nervous. Winning starts with the defense as far as I’m concerned.

In summary, I do really like our draft this year. For sure our offense should be better because even if the line still sucks wind we can always line up 5 wide (Sweed, Parker, Mendehall/Miller, Ward, Holmes) and just 3 step drop everything!! Or maybe line up with 2 running backs (Parker/Mendenhall) in the old standard I formation and just keep ‘em guessing with some trick plays. But I tell you, I don’t see us being a run first team without someone stepping up on that O-Line and playing. And if we’re not a run first team I really don’t see us making it deep into the playoffs.

Just as the thought of being a pass first team scares me I’ll restate that our depth on D Line is frightening.

So these were my two main concerns going into the draft and still remain my two biggest concerns coming out. But we added some quality players and that can surely only help us. I guess we’ll see how it pans out this fall. Because regardless of how fun the offseason is the whole point of it is to still play the games to see who the best team is!

Do you think it’s too late to find someone willing to give us a D Lineman for Najah Davenport, Gary Russell, or Cary Davis?

-David