Have the Pittsburgh Steelers salvaged their offseason?
There has been a lot of negativity surrounding the organization for many months, but are the Pittsburgh Steelers feeling better after this year’s draft?
Dating back to 2013, the Pittsburgh Steelers have now made seven selections in the first round of the NFL Draft. All have been on the defensive side of the football: one cornerback, one safety and five linebackers. But this year’s selection came via a rare aggressive move by general manager Kevin Colbert and the front office.
The team came into last week’s proceedings with 10 picks, including the 20th overall selection. The Steelers moved up 10 spots in a trade with the Denver Broncos. The teams flip-flopped their first-round choices and Pittsburgh not only surrendered a second-round pick but a 2020 third-round choice as well.
The target was University of Michigan linebacker Devin Bush, who hopes to fill the shoes of Ryan Shazier. The latter was injured late in the 2017 and, in 2019, will not play football for a second-straight season. Bush is a big-play performer who hopes to elevate a unit that has been inconsistent at best despite numbers that would indicate some success.
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More importantly, the move up seemed like a sense of relief for a franchise that had taken its lumps the previous few months. The Antonio Brown situation cast the franchise in a bad light in some people’s eyes. Likewise last year’s contract situation with running back Le’Veon Bell, who sat out all of 2018 after being given the franchise tag by the organization for a second straight year.
Add in the fact that Mike Tomlin’s team missed the playoffs after a 7-2-1 start a year ago and the usually-steady Steelers looked anything but organized.
On paper, Colbert appears to have a solid draft. Along with Bush, wide receiver Diontae Johnson (3-Toledo) has big-play capabilities. Fellow third-rounder Justin Layne (3b-Michigan State) has the size teams are looking for at cornerback. And former University of Kentucky running back Benny Snell, a fourth-round pick, could be a nice complement to James Conner. Of course, the proof will be in the pudding flavored NFL 2019.
Perhaps more importantly, the more recent news has somewhat quieted the talk of Brown’s and Bell’s offseason departures via trade and free agency, respectively. This is a franchise that hasn’t suffered through a losing campaign since 2003 and, while another Super Bowl title has eluded the Pittsburgh Steelers for a decade (2008), it’s a team that’s always in postseason contention.
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And one that is apparently quite focused — not surprisingly — on the business of football and not the drama that was seemingly a daily occurrence for far too long this year.