Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently took part in a mock of the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft with other beat writers and he selected a cornerback for the Pittsburgh Steelers at 15h overall.
Bouchette’s selection was Oklahoma State cornerback Justin Gilbert and here is his reasoning behind the pick.
The Steelers have gone from old and slow on defense to young and unsung with holes and depth issues. Ike Taylor is 34 and they need corners. Ben Roethlisberger is 32 and they need to give him another big receiving weapon to pair with Antonio Brown after losing three of their top four in FA the past 14 months (Mike Wallace, Emmanuel Sanders, Jerricho Cotchery). They have only one real starting DE and no depth. They have two starters at OLB who have yet to really prove themselves, Jason Worilds and Jarvis Jones and no depth. They have only one real starter at ILB, Lawrence Timmons, and no depth. They have to be looking strongly at taking CB-WR one-two in the first two rounds. They feel they can get a good WR in round two, but if they are going to get a top-flight corner, No. 1 is the time to do it, therefore…
Bouchette obviously chose Gilbert over Virginia Tech’s Kyle Fuller. However, Bouchette does say that he chose Fuller for the Steelers in a mock draft for that he took part in last week for the Los Angeles Times as both Gilbert and Darqueze Dennard were already off the board. He seems to be set with Dennard, Gilbert and Fuller as far as his cornerback rankings go. In his Tuesday onine chat, however, Bouchette had this to say about Fuller.
If the first two cornerbacks, Dennard and Gilbert, are gone, I think they’d try to trade down before picking Fuller. He would be their third choice, I believe.
The selection of Gilbert by Bouchette will likely please many of you and you can’t fault him for wanting to address the cornerback position in the first round.
I must say that there are some interesting picks in that mock.
Bouchette will have his own first round mock draft posted on Thursday.
