Steelers Should Get What They Need, But Not Get Greedy
There’s a chance they can drastically improve the offensive line, and thus the offense, in the first two rounds of the NFL Draft. But their focus should be on a center — first and foremost.
Options abound for the Steelers, a good team but not a great one and perhaps a team on the rise. But at the same time it’s a team with multiple positions that need to be addressed entering the NFL Draft.
It’s always good to have options, so there’s that right off the bat.
But the NFL’s annual talent grab also arrives this time with one absolute attached.
The Steelers have to get a center.
Not just any center, a plug-and-play answer at a position where they haven’t been right since Maurkice Pouncey retired.
They don’t necessarily have to find that guy in the first round, but they’d better find him somewhere.
“You just got two quarterbacks in, you’ve gotta protect them, that should be your start,” former quarterback Ben Roethlisberger emphasized this week on the DVE Morning Show. “It feels like they’ve been trying to rebuild the line but just in unique ways recently. So I would start with the line, whether there’s a good center out there, or an (offensive) tackle, maybe take the first two (picks and invest accordingly).
“I know there’s other stuff with [wide] receivers and stuff like that but to me it starts and stops with the line.”
That much seems relatively obvious.
But the order of selection is much more complicated.
If the Steelers stick and pick at 20th overall there will be offensive tackles and centers available, the type of quality tackles you don’t normally get with the 20th overall selection, one that would allow right tackle Broderick Jones to move to the left side, as the Steelers desire, and centers capable of starting from Game One, as Pouncey did back in 2010.
But they might not be able to get both in succession.
If, for example, they opt for Washington offensive tackle Troy Fautanu in the first round, there’s no guarantee a plug-and-play center such as WVU’s Zach Frazier will still be on the board in the second round.
If they prioritize center via the drafting of Duke’s Graham Barton or Oregon’s Jackson Powers-Johnson with their first selection, conversely, the Steelers might well find the supply of the type of tackle they’re after exhausted by the time they pick again.
They’d be getting a player who can impact the team immediately with either selection.
Still, such a scenario presents something of a dilemma.
Roethlisberger didn’t hesitate when asked which position he valued more.
“Center,” he emphasized. “Listen, tackles are important, they’re protecting your blind side. But you can put tight ends [next to the left tackle] and help chip [block edge rushers], you can do things to help a tackle.
“A center, he can make a lot of calls and help you. Your center and quarterback have to work together. ‘Pounce’ and I, we fed off each other. I’m not saying you’re gonna find the next Maurkice Pouncey but I think you gotta have that guy. If you’re not on the same page with your center, you’re in trouble.”
An organization that used to employ Mike Webster, Dermontti Dawson and Pouncey ought to appreciate that as much if not more than any other.
Not that the Steelers have to draft a future Hall-of-Famer to play center, but they need to be better there if they intend to evolve on offense as necessary.
They can live with Dan Moore Jr. at left tackle and Jones remaining on the right side for one more season a lot easier than they can having a first-round right tackle, having Jones switch to the left side and playing whatever option General Manager Omar Khan has continually referenced as existing on the current roster at center.
The Steelers may indeed have options there, but they aren’t good ones.
So get the center you have to have and hope for the best.
Nickel cornerback also needs to be addressed, but that can wait.
And a wide receiver the Steelers can afford to be exceptionally patient, such is the overall depth available at that position.
In an ideal world, the Steelers will emerge from this weekend with new starters at right tackle (first round) and center (second round), and with help that’ll prove impactful at nickel cornerback and wide receiver (via their two selections on the third round). After that they can settle for the best of what’s left on the fourth round (edge rusher) because you can’t have too many of those, or perhaps an additional wide receiver) and with the two picks they possess on the sixth round (inside linebacker, since they never seem to have enough of those, and a defensive lineman, in no particular order of significance).
But since the draft rarely unfolds in a best-case scenario, the Steelers would do well to fix what they can when they can.
There are centers that can be drafted in the latter rounds that might work out eventually, but why risk it?
Center’s the priority.
Where that guy is drafted isn’t critical but securing that guy at some point is mandatory.
If not the next Maurkice Pouncey, then the next best thing.
