Getting ready for the 2009 Draft

It’s been 2 months since I’ve posted anything. Sorry, I guess I’ve been busy / unmotivated to write about much. I’m working up the energy to drop some heavy religious philosophy, but that will have to wait until another day.

In about 6 hours, the 2009 NFL draft starts and that is what has captured my attention this morning. There seems to be a lot of differences of popular opinion about how the first round will pan out so this should a really interesting year. On the subject of the first pick, last night before I went to bed I think I heard that Detroit had signed Matthew Stafford already. Or maybe I dreamed that? I haven’t checked the news yet this morning so I’ll leave that for later.

The most important aspect of the draft is the 9 picks that the Steelers have. Coming off a Superbowl win and a free agency period that sees most of the team still intact, the Steelers really don’t have any burning holes to fill. In fact, popular opinion seems to be that they will even package a few of those 9 picks together and move up once or twice in the draft to nail a person they really want. I suppose that is okay by me because I really can’t see how 9 rookies are really going to make our final 53 man roster and I’m not so sure they would even make our training roster. So you might as well give a couple of them up if it gets a guy you are really hot for. Again, I say that because we don’t have a lot of holes so I don’t think we need a bunch rookies to replace any of our veterans. We need our rookies to get prepared to take over for some of the veterans some day in 2010 or beyond.

Before I talk too much about what kind of rookies we need, let’s review the people we lost and gained in free agency. While we lost some O-Lineman with Marvel Smith and I think Kendall Simmons (or did we lose him last year?), none of them were really starting anymore or basically on the roster at all. So we won’t really miss them. We also lost Byron Leftwich but that’s okay because we still have Charlie Batch who is a more than adequate back up. So the only two losses that really hurt us were Nate Washington and Bryant McFadden.

Nate was the #3 WR so while not technically a starter, he did play quite a bit. I’m okay with losing him, though, because I was tired of waiting for him to break out. Every year for the past 2 or 3 years I’ve been saying, “This will be the year Nate breaks out (and quits dropping passes)”. Well I got tired of waiting. While he had some really nice catches last year (especially some deep balls), he still dropped a lot of passes and in the end I just don’t trust him. He may go to Tennessee and have a great couple seasons, but he’s just not worth the risk for the money that he was able to get on the open market. Goodbye, Nate. I appreciate what you were to us but it’s time we part ways.

The loss of Bryant McFadden, on the other hand, hurts. We will miss him. He was a very good corner, in my opinion. I don’t fault the Steelers front office for not paying him what he eventually got but I also would have been okay if they paid him that as well. I was right on the fence with the money he was going to get. William Gay eases that pain quite a bit, thankfully. Gay stepped in for McFadden in a few games this year when Bryant was injured. And Gay did a very good job as well.

So we lost 1.5 starters but have guys that can step in and replace them (Gay for McFadden and either Sweed or Baker for Washington). The good news is we have no urgent needs to fill in the draft. We have all of our starters in place already.

What do we need? In order, I think we need to draft the following positions:

1) Offensive line. Yeah, we won the Superbowl, but Ben got hit A LOT last year and our running game was too inconsistent, especially in short yardage. We really need to upgrade our starters at some point. I guess I’m okay playing 16 games this year with the guys we have but I would LOVE for a rookie to catch fire and make it into the starting lineup. That would be a pleasant surprise.
2) Defensive line. Our defensive linemen are STUDS and as long as Aaron Smith isn’t the injured one we have very nice depth behind them. The problem is, all the starters AND backups are getting very old. I think they are all over 30. Maybe one of them is just under 30. We really need some youth injected into the mix for future years. Also, Casey Hampton’s contract comes up in 2010 and I just don’t see us re-signing him (he’ll want too much money). So we are really going to need a 3-4 Nose Tackle fairly soon. Chris Hoke could step in and replace him, but again, he is getting old too.
3) Corner back. Yes, Gay will replace McFadden and do fine. Yes, Deshea Townsend is still there and can step into the starting role if needed. Yes we just picked up our only free agent from another team (a 27 year old perennial back up corner). But we don’t have a young guy in the mix that will eventually replace Taylor or Gay. Gay was that guy and now he will start. So we still do need to get a young guy in there that can become a starter eventually.
4) Wide Receiver. I guess I’m not 100% sold on Sweed and Baker just yet. I’m sure they can be a #3 for at least a year, but can either of them be a #1 or #2? Ward might only have a few seasons left and Holmes might never get another contract with the Steelers (depends on what he’ll ask for money wise). So we need to figure out who will be our next two starting wide receivers some day.
5) Safety. Troy and Ryan are the best two safeties in football as far as I am concerned. The problem is that behind them we’re not exactly lighting it up with talent. Tyrone Carter is okay. Hell, I can’t even remember what other safeties are on the roster other than him for that matter. We need some depth here.
6) Linebacker. For the 100th time you’ll here me say I am ALWAYS okay with the Steelers drafting a linebacker. In a 3-4 defense you need to make sure you always have a stable of young linebackers available. As you can see with James Harrison, good ones cost you plenty. You can’t afford to pay 4 guys like that so you have to always have quality young guys to plug in there and fill the holes.

And that’s about it. We are plenty deep at RB, QB, and TE so there isn’t much left to talk about.

In previous years I would get very worked up with the order we drafted these positions in. This year, I’m not worried at all. I could really care less what order we draft any of these guys in because at least for this year, we probably don’t need any of them. So we have the luxury of biding our time and taking the best player. And if that means packaging two picks together to jump ahead of someone to get our guy, go for it.

This should be a stress free draft for Steelers fans. So I can sit back, drink a beer, and enjoy.

HERE WE GO STEELERS, HERE WE GO!

-David