Draft day buzz and rumors are always fun to follow and you see even more of it these days thanks to social media. The latest buzz stems from the latest Rick Gosselin mock draft in which he has Nebraska cornerback Prince Amukamara falling all the way down to the #25 spot where the Seahawks pick, even though Eagles beat writer Jeff McLane says via Twitter there is no way that the Eagles would pass on the Prince at #23. Let's say for some reason that Amukamara makes it past the Buccaneers at #20, this would put the Chiefs on the clock with the #21 pick, just 10 picks ahead of the Steelers. The Read more [...]

#1 - Let It Rain A Few QB's Early - Let's hope the Panthers start right off the bat by selecting Auburn quarterback Cam Newton number one overall in the draft and a few other teams follow suit other than the 49ers, Cardinals & Titans. There is an outside chance the Dolphins and Patriots could indeed draft a quarterback in round 1 and not only would it drop a few players down to the board, it opens up the possibility of teams trying to trade back into the bottom of round 1 with the Steelers to draft a quarterback like the three teams I mentioned above. The Vikings, Redskins and Bills are also Read more [...]

The 2011 NFL Draft is less than 24 hours away and now it is time for you to vote what you think the Steelers will do in the 1st round. I have listed 10 players that have been linked to the Steelers one way or another over the last month. Of course not all of them will likely be on the board when the Steelers pick at #31, but it is your call if you think the player will fall. Vote in the poll below for the player you think will the Steelers will pick in round 1. I have included trade up and trade down as options as well along with an "Other" choice if you do not see the player on the list. The other Read more [...]

Doing mock drafts is like arguing with your wife, you are sure to never win. As more and more scouting reports come in and you watch hours and hours of whatever footage you can find on a player, your mind starts playing tricks on you. I read and watch everything I can get my hands on leading up to the draft and after every mock draft I do I am never happy with. The scenarios are endless. I guess I am lucky in that sense though that a bad day for me is having a bad mock draft. It beats arguing with the wife as well. In all of my mock drafts I take into account the Steelers needs, draft history, Read more [...]

Jason La Canfora has Steeler Nation all going crazy tonight with his report that the Steelers have serious designs on trading up in the 1st round of the 2011 NFL draft Thursday night to get Mike Pouncey, the twin brother of Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey. La Canfora reports that a league source has informed him that Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has given an edict to his personnel department to explore all realistic trade options should Pouncey slide down the draft board. In his report, La Canfora mentions the Chargers and Giants as teams that could possibly have their eye on the Florida twin Read more [...]

After writing about why I think the Steelers should do their best to trade out of the 1st round of the 2011 NFL draft that begins Thursday night, I was curious to the value that Director of Football Operations Kevin Colbert has gotten in pick for pick trades since he took over in 2000. I have written about the trading history of Colbert this past offseason and have taken those trades listed there and applied the NFL draft pick value chart to them in the data below. As you can see, Colbert has done a great job trading picks for picks and only once, in 2001, did he not gain value in trading down. Read more [...]

During the Steelers pre draft press conference today Steelers Director of Football Operations Kevin Colbert said, "We're going to pick based on our team as it currently stands," Colbert said. "I don't know how it currently stands because there's different possibilities that exist. But when the lockout began this is our team as we know it, and we're going to draft accordingly." What Colbert was of course eluding to are the several free agents the Steelers have that are up in the air. Most notably are the ones who's free agent status depends on the outcome of a new CBA like tackle Willie Colon, Read more [...]

Steelers Director of Football Operations Kevin Colbert and head coach Mike Tomlin held their 2011 pre draft press conference to take questions from the local media concerning the upcoming draft later this week. Below are the talking points from the presser and we will be adding more. Colbert said that of 160 on the Steelers draftboard their are probably 100 or so that can improve the team and said there are 20 special players in this draft. The list started at 1,000 names and was trimmed down to 400 and then was trimmed to 200 players for their draft pool. 40 of those 200 were then eliminated Read more [...]

It has been 43 years since the Steelers have not made a 1st round selection and this Thursday would be the perfect draft to break that streak. The Steelers pick 31st overall in the 2011 NFL draft and the talent that will likely be left on the board at that time might be best regarded as second round talent. The value seems to drop fast after about the 26th pick in my opinion and the Steelers would be better off trading down a handful of spots to attain an early second round pick and perhaps another 4th round selection in addition. Last night I identified six teams that might be potential trading Read more [...]

The Steelers are more than likely to stand pat with their 31st overall selection on Thursday night, but trading is always an option. Should the Steelers do any trading on Thursday night, the consensus guess would be that they trade down and not up. There are quite a few teams that pick early in round 1 that might be clamoring to get back into the bottom of round 1 should they not grab a quarterback with their 1st overall pick. There are 6 teams that this could apply to that the Steelers might consider dealing with. These 6 teams are the Cardinals, Titans, 49ers, Bills, Vikings and Redskins. The Read more [...]

The 2011 NFL Draft is just under 4 days away now and the players the Steelers draft will all likely be photographed wearing the 2011 Steelers player draft hat shown in the picture to the left. The 2011 NFL draft hats are once again being made by Reebok and are made of 84% nylon, 14% cotton and 2% polyurethane. The Steelers team logo is embroidered on front is raised and features contrasting bonded cut-and-sew panels on front and top visor. The hat is predominately gold with black and white accents. The NFL Equipment shield is on the back of the hat and an embroidered Reebok logo is on the left Read more [...]

The 2011 NFL Draft is just under 5 days away now and all of the Pro Days and pre draft visits have been completed. The speculation is rampant of who the Steelers will draft in round one, should they not trade the pick, and many of the so-called draft experts and non experts have the Steelers selecting Texas cornerback Aaron Williams with the 31st overall selection Thursday night. There are many arguments that can be made why the Steelers should not draft Williams, but for the sake of this article I will focus on the evidence that points to Williams being perhaps the odds on favorite right now Read more [...]

Tony Villiotti from draftmetrics.com has some great studies up on the Relative Value of Draft Choices here and here as well as historical draft information on all the positions. In this post I will highlight a few of his observations as it relates to the Steelers in the upcoming draft. I am not going to go too deep into his Relative Value of Draft Choices article, but I do suggest reading it to get a grasp on where he is coming from in his position related articles. For quick reference make sure you understand that the Steelers 1st round pick falls in the VG3 (Value Group 3) area. Most everyone Read more [...]

Episode #48 of The Terrible Podcast is up and in this special pre draft podcast episode I am joined by Dave-Te' Thomas, the Director of Operations for Scouting Services Inc to discuss the 2011 NFL draft as it relates to the Steelers. Dave is a long time NFL scout that got his break with the Raiders and Al Davis back in 1968 at the young age of 14. Dave starts off telling me a little about his background and he turned heads with the Raiders with his first 4000 page draft report. We then get into to talking about players the Steelers might have interest in drafting next week and Dave tells me why Read more [...]

The NFL announced through a media release today that 32 legendary NFL alumni, one representing each team, will announce live on Friday every selection of the second round of the 2011 NFL Draft next week. This will mark the first time in NFL Draft history every selection in a round has been announced by former players. Announcing the Steelers 2nd round pick will be Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris. The NFL alumni scheduled to be on-hand at Radio City Music Hall to make the announcements from the podium includes: Arizona Cardinals, Aeneas Williams (CB) Atlanta Falcons, Jessie Tuggle Read more [...]

Another defensive tackle reportedly made a pre draft visit to Pittsburgh recently to visit with the Steelers as Sean Jensen reports that Northwestern defensive tackle Corbin Bryant flew to Pittsburgh to meet with the Steelers coaching staff and get his medical check done. Bryant measured in at his Pro Day at 6 foot 3 and 3/8 and weighed 297 pounds. He ran his 40 in 5.08 seconds and did 31 reps on the bench. Bryant was selected All-Big Ten Honorable Mention for the 2010 college football season as selected by the Big Ten media and ranked third on the team with 8.0 tackles for loss while also registering Read more [...]

Episode #47 of The Terrible Podcast is up and in this 30 minute episode David Todd and I discuss the Steelers 2011 schedule that was released on Tuesday and talk about what we dislike about it and how the Steelers strength of schedule is misleading. We continue on and discuss the latest news from the Sports Business Journal that a “breakaway group of players” want a seat at the mediation table and might be close to hiring a lawyer to intervene in mediation. We then move on to talk about the recent pre draft visitors the Steelers have had in and discuss a little about the Steelers 1st round Read more [...]

It was reported yesterday that San Diego State wide receiver Vincent Brown would be visiting Pittsburgh today to have a pre draft visit and now Steelers Digest just announced that South Carolina tight end Weslye Saunders, Virginia Tech safety Davon Morgan and Texas defensive back Aaron Williams are also visiting the South Side today as well for pre draft visits. That brings the count of players not from the University of Pittsburgh up to 32, 2 more than the allowed 30 which means a few names on the list might not have been official visits and were individual work-outs instead. A few names that Read more [...]

Adam Caplan of Foxsports.com reported via Twitter that the Steelers are expected to have San Diego St. wide receiver Vincent Brown in for a pre draft visit tomorrow. Brown measured in at 5 foot 11 and 1/4 at the NFL Combine where he had a rough showing. He had hoped to run the 40 in the 4.4 or low 4.5 range, but instead ran in the high 4.6, low 4.7 range and his draft stock dropped because of it. He improved his time to the high 4.5 range at his Pro Day in late March. Brown is currently projected as a mid round draft pick later this month. Read more [...]

The Steelers are winding down their 2011 pre draft visits, but hosted a pair of offensive lineman today as Texas Christian tackle Marcus Cannon and Nebraska guard Keith Williams are reportedly visiting Pittsburgh. Cannon measured in at the combine at 6 foot 5 inches and weighed 358 pounds. He is projected as a 2nd round draft pick and might be a prospect to kick inside and play guard at the next level. He is one of the strongest linemen in this draft class after benching 225 pounds 33 times at the combine. Williams measured in at 6 foot 4 and a 1/4 at the combine and weighed 318 pounds. He Read more [...]