Mid-Draft Shakedown

[Steelerette]

Alright! Three rounds under our belts. Seems we have mixed feelings on Shazier, mostly love Tuitt, and mostly don't love Archer. But, absent the next four rounds, let's see what kind of shape our Pittsburgh Steelers are in!

Here's a projected 53-man roster, based solely on the people we currently have.

QB Ben Roethlisberger
QB Bruce Gradkowski
QB Landry Jones

WR Antonio Brown
WR Markus Wheaton
WR Lance Moore
WR Derrius Heyward-Bey
WR Justin Brown
WR Jasper Collins

TE Heath Miller
TE Matt Spaeth
TE David Paulson

RB Le'Veon Bell
RB LeGarrette Blount
RB Dri Archer
RB Tauren Poole
FB Will Johnson

OT Kelvin Beachum
OT Guy Whimper
OT Mike Adams
OT Marcus Gilbert
OG Ramon Foster
OG David Snow
OG David DeCastro
OG Nik Embernate
OC Maurkice Pouncey
OC Cody Wallace

K Shaun Suisham
P Adam Podlesh
LS Greg Warren

DE Cameron Heyward
DE Nick Williams
DE Stephon Tuitt
DE Brian Arnfeldt
DT Steve McLendon
DT Cam Thomas

OLB Jarvis Jones
OLB Arthur Moats
OLB Jason Worilds
OLB Chris Carter
ILB Ryan Shazier
ILB Vince Williams
ILB Lawrence Timmons
ILB Sean Spence

SS Troy Polamalu
SS Shamarko Thomas
FS Mike Mitchell
FS Robert Golden
CB Ike Taylor
CB Cortez Allen
CB William Gay
CB Brice McCain
CB Isaiah Green

What jumps out at me? In this order:

CB position
DE depth
WR depth
OG depth
TE depth

-Dri Archer is going to mostly be used as a WR IMO, but I have him listed as RB on here.

There isn't one unit I'm 100% satisfied with. Linebacking corps and Safeties come close. I feel that Sean Spence is a Safety conversion project but I'm not willing to mark him as a Safety just yet, of course.

I'm not a Guy Whimper fan and I'm a little concerned with our depth at Guard. I think Embernate has a lot of potential. Wallace would be fine in an emergency but that would leave us with no Center depth. David Snow... I'm not impressed. Chris Hubbard, Bryant Browning, even less impressed.

Nick Williams might be serviceable depth. Might. If we're real lucky Cam Thomas regains some form and earns the starting NT role, Fangupo stays on as the backup, and McLendon slides out to DE... to start at first, but to slowly relinquish the role to Tuitt. Maybe that'll work. Not high on Arnfeldt.

Cornerback... that shit is scary. I'm a fan of the draft picks we made so far but, we really need to address this. WR depth is suspect.

Here's what I would do:

1) Draft McGill or DeSir, Isaiah Green will go byebye.
2) Draft Jeff Janis or Devin Street. Then, between Justin Brown, Jasper Collins, and Derek Moye... either zero or one of them makes the team.
3) Take two stabs at Offensive Linemen.
4) Grab a TE, Lyerla or Branchflower. Paulson and Spaeth can fight for the last TE spot.
5) Final pick, either BPA or a punter.

Then after June 1st I would...

1) Bring back Keisel to play across from Heyward and teach Tuitt the ropes, until Tuitt is ready to go, then he can be our depth til the end of the season, then retire, we can cut Arnfeldt
2) Sign James Harrison cheap to play situationally and to mentor Jarvis, and provide that OLB depth one last year; we can cut Chris Carter.
3) Sign Felix Jones to another year, he's a decent complement to what we'll have, Tauren Poole can go away. No need for LRSH after the Archer pick.
4) See if we can't top it off by improving upon David Snow and Brice McCain, either through FA, UDFA...

[Steelerette]

Well we kind of got there.

Let me try to piece together a 53-man with all our draft picks in consideration.

QB Ben Roethlisberger
QB Bruce Gradkowski
QB Landry Jones

WR Antonio Brown
WR Markus Wheaton
WR Lance Moore
WR Martavis Bryant
WR Derrius Heyward-Bey

TE Heath Miller
TE David Paulson
TE Matt Spaeth

RB Le'Veon Bell
RB LeGarrette Blount
RB Dri Archer
RB Tauren Poole
FB Will Johnson

OT Kelvin Beachum
OT Guy Whimper
OT Mike Adams
OT Marcus Gilbert
OG Ramon Foster
OG Wesley Johnson
OG David DeCastro
OG Nik Embernate
OC Maurkice Pouncey
OC Cody Wallace

K Shaun Suisham
P Adam Podlesh
LS Greg Warren

DE Cameron Heyward
DE Nick Williams
DE Stephon Tuitt
DE Cam Thomas
DT Steve McLendon
DT Daniel McCullers

OLB Jarvis Jones
OLB Arthur Moats
OLB Jason Worilds
OLB Chris Carter
ILB Ryan Shazier
ILB Vince Williams
ILB Lawrence Timmons
ILB Jordan Zumwalt
ILB Sean Spence

SS Troy Polamalu
SS Shamarko Thomas
FS Mike Mitchell
FS Robert Golden
CB Ike Taylor
CB Cortez Allen
CB William Gay
CB Brice McCain
CB Shaquille Robinson

I have Blanchflower not making the team, but winding up on the Practice Squad.

I have Wesley Johnson listed as a Guard, which may suit him better here, but he can still go OT in an emergency... so he replaced Snow, but we keep Whimper.

I have us keeping only 5 WRs, that's Brown, Wheaton, Moore, Bryant, and Heyward-Bey. If we decide to keep a sixth WR then Moye, Collins, Brown, and all those, will have to fight for it.

The reason I have 5 WRs was to make room for both Zumwalt and Spence. I have a feeling we're going to work on converting Spence to Safety. But he can be a sort of utility guy for us. In either case it's going to be nice not having to rely on someone like Foote inside. Love Foote but...

I look forward to seeing what UDFAs we get, and I'm still thinking we can go out in the FA market after June 1st and get, Felix Jones back, and then some depth at CB and maybe OT. And who knows, maybe even a real TE in FA. We can't make a lot of splashes but we will have the capacity to pick our poison.

I can't see Harrison coming back at this point. And if we wanted to bring in Beard to tutor Tuitt, we'd have to cut Nick Williams. I don't know.