http://www.drafttek.com/2016-NFL-Mock-Draft-Round1b.aspRound 1 - Steelers
Kevin Dodd
Clemson
OLB34
Reach/Value: +2 Height:
6'5"
Weight:
280 Alternate Pick #1
Scooby Wright
Alternate Pick #2
Noah Spence
The Steelers simply need more production from their outside rushers. While the team racked up a healthy 48 sacks last year, only 14 of these came from the outside. Dodd is leaving Clemson a year early after an impactful playoff run where he racked up four sacks in the Tiger's failed championship bid. Typical of players off a stacked college squad, it will be difficult for teams to parse how much of Dodd's success is a result of his talent and how much results from playing across the line from his star teammate, Shaq Lawson. Dodd only has a year of starting tape, but it shows a productive player against the run with 23.5 TFL, and a pass rusher who played with strength and speed on the way to 12 sacks. Teams will be looking at his Combine closely to validate his film and assess his skills to drop into coverage.
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25. Pittsburgh Steelers: Taylor Decker, OT, Ohio State
Kelvin Beachum is an impending free agent. If he's not retained, something will need to be done about Ben Roethlisberger's pass protection, which was not pretty to close out the year.
Read more at http://walterfootball.com/draft2016_1.php#ZRjceCZtBOjUZq2X.99
"With love, with patience, and with Faith
....She'll make her way" ~ Natalie Merchant
you wouldn't have to use a 1st round pick on him, Nassib is projected to go in the 2nd round.
Nassib can be used in a rotation as a situational pass rusher so Heyward and Tuitt don't have to play as many snaps as they did this past season and he would be a great insurance policy in event of injury. also, Tuitt and Hewward are both very capable of lining up on the inside if you want to have them all on the field at the same time...
A bit of film on Nassib
http://draftbreakdown.com/video/carl...uffalo-2015-2/
So 8 minutes of a dude getting handled by a RT and a TE that will never see an NFL camp let alone play on Sundays? I know this guy is good. I know that most of the early reports are glowing. I also know that I really don't know what I'm looking for in terms of technique and all that, but based on the linked tape - I have one question? Who the hell is #99? That dude is consistently rocking his man back at the point of impact and is collapsing the interior of that O-line repeatedly.
Again: We do not need another pass rusher. We need a big fat guy who can wreck up the play and free things up for the existing pass rushers. Who will then be pretty good, without spending any more draft picks on OLB that don't work.
Cam Thomas sucks. Steve McLendon sucks. Get those guys off the fucking field/off the fucking team. I don't care which round we take the fat guy in as long as it's not the what-the-hell pick at the end of the draft like we usually do. Earlier is better. Come on man, fuck this shit.
See you Space Cowboy ...
unless we sign a safety like Eric Weddle or Tashaun Gipson we do need to address this position early. Will Allen probably won't be re-signed and that leaves us with only Mitchell, Golden, Shamarko and Dangerfield as our safeties.
Darian Thompson was the best safety at the Senior Bowl and if we want him we would most likely have to draft him in Round 1. if not for Karl Joseph's injury he probably would have been a first rounder but I think the fact that he still won't be able to run at the Combine will push him down to Round 2 or 3...
After watching the SB last night, I do not see how another pass rusher would be a bad thing. Jackson and Wolf are equaled by Tuitt and Heyward. Timmons and Shazier are more than equal to Trevethan and Marshall inside. Miller and Ware are FAR better than DuPree and ???? outside.
I don't remember Sly Williams really doing much more than McClendon does. NT is not the problem, it could be improved. The depth is terrible at the DLine.
The problems is that Miller and Ware can beat their blockers on an individual basis in a 3-4 and Dupree and Jones can not. Neither can Harrison or Moats. That's why all the Steelers sacks come from DBs and random other LBers. The outside rushers don't need double teamed to get stonewalled.
Well, we can go back and forth about this forever, but as you know, I think it's more like our OLBs can't beat an offensive tackle one-on-one, who often has a running back or TE for help. Improve that matchup to a TE or a RB one-on-one and a merely decent player will do much better.
Sure, there are a handful of really special pass rushers who can dominate their man regardless, like Von Miller did last night - but I don't see us with the #2 overall draft pick any time soon, and the real can't-miss guys like that are all off the board way early. The guys we take at #18, #22, whatever, are all a dice-roll in that respect, so I'd rather we not use the first-round pick on that every year. Our options there are 1) Go 4-12 one year, 2) Get lucky with (one of many) non-Top 10 picks, or 3) Make your decent OLBs better by giving them help.
We're not going to get that one-of-a-kind dominant pass rusher at #25 in the draft unless we get really lucky. We're just not. So might as well focus on what we CAN control. It's worth mentioning that one thing Greg Lloyd, Joey Porter, James Harrison and every other dominant Steelers OLB had in common was an excellent defensive line across the board.
I don't want to argue this to eternity with you; I understand your side of it and I get it. This is more just general talking into the thread, if you know what I mean. And by the way - I am by no means insisting a nose tackle is the ONLY option, there are just a lot of good defensive linemen this year so it's worth considering, but DB help at either position would be just as important. If we do anything outside of that with our first pick, we'd better have either gotten the steal of the century or we need our heads examined.
See you Space Cowboy ...
I think we need both and hopefully it happens.
I would surely consider giving up our first round pick in 2017 & 2018 for an extra 1 rounder in this draft. If some team in the top six or so would take it.
I think Dupree can be someone special, which will in turn make JJ better. I definitely think we need to get depth along the DL also. I would like us to get a CB in FA so we can draft our our DL depth (NT or otherwise, but I think McClendon would do better as a DT so I wouldn't be opposed to a good NT) I do think W Allen will be retained for one more season, he is at least a solid backup, I think Golden has surpassed him at this point and would be fine with Golden and Mitchell as our starters. Ideally we would have Cockrell and FA outside, Gay inside in the slot with Gay moving out and one of this years rookies replacing Gay in the slot on passing downs. Then we can draft a S and/or CB to groom for a year to replace people.
As others have suggested, and I completely agree with, free agency is the place to look for a DB if we want help NOW. I like Allen as a backup and actually don't think he plays that badly when he doesn't have to babysit Blake - but with both in there, their mistakes compound each other. So I wouldn't mind having him AS A BACKUP. But Golden should be given the nod there unless we bring in someone new.
Defensive line is a place where a rookie could help us more immediately than DB. It's a lot harder to get used to covering NFL receivers; being a big fat guy who shoves people out of the way is a skill set that translates a lot quicker.
McLendon strikes me as a guy who for some reason, as long as he's on the team, he's going to be the starting nose tackle and we won't look for another guy who could be the starting nose tackle. So I hope we move on. He's always seemed like he'd make a very good 4-3 defensive tackle but just doesn't have what it takes to stand out as a nose tackle in a 3-4.
See you Space Cowboy ...
I am assuming that those are my only two options...
Darian Thompson is a FS. If they drafted him, I'd move Mitchell to SS (where I think he'd be a better fit anyway). As a SS, Mitchell's lack of coverage skills would be lessened and his penchant for contact would actually be an asset.
Karl Jospeh would be a SS. He's a thumper. But, he also has ball skills (he was leading the NCAA prior to his knee injury).
Thompson would have to be taken at 25.
Jospeh would be there in R2.
SUMMATION:
There are pros and cons to each of them.
I think I read somewhere that Heyward had more snaps than any other 3-4 DE in the league and Tuitt never got much of a breather either. I think that in itself is reason enough to go after a DT fairly early...
Im still leaning towards picking up a big name CB in free agency like Patrick Robinson...using the first pick for the BPA...and picking up a safety and TE in the 2nd and third round. A defensive end like 6'4 303 Matt Ioannidis of Temple would be nice in the 4th round.
I would actually like to see us trade OUT of the first round this year and accumulate picks.
With a trade we could look at a draft of:
FA pickup Patrick Robinson
2nd: SS Jeremy Cash of Duke 6'1 212
2nd: CB Xavien Howard of Baylor 6'1 200
3rd: TE Nick Vannett of Ohio State 6'6 256
3rd: DE Matt Ioannidis of Temple 6'4 303
4th: NT Hassan Ridgeway of Texas 6'3 320
6th: RB Leon Allen of Western Kentucky 5'11 235
7th: OG Isaac Seumalo of Oregon State 6'4 310
7th: OLB Curt Maggitt of Tennessee 6'3 256
7th: KR/WR J.D. McKissic of Arkansas State 5'10 193
"I believe the game is designed to reward the ones who hit the hardest. If you can't take it, you shouldn't play"
-- Jack Lambert --
If we signed a free agent corner, that would actually leave us with a glut of defensive backs if we drafted any more. Without a doubt, I think it's the right move, but remember we've got two guys who didn't play at all last year and hopefully will this year. So I think we draft a corner OR a safety early, but probably not both. Which one depends on where we see Golson playing, whether we move Grant to safety, and of course who we sign and who's available when we pick. I'm not even figuring Boykin into that because he's as good as gone, and Blake should be too.
A TE would be good in the middle rounds, but I like Austin Hooper from Stanford better if we can get him at #3; seems less raw and likely to do well coming from a pro-style offense. Vannett seems like Matt Spaeth II, which we don't need to spend a draft pick on. Still think we need a defensive lineman very early, as a question-mark/project guy isn't going to help right away and we'll still be left with two guys and a pile of crap. Basically if Heyward or Tuitt puts a foot wrong all year, it's an early exit for us.
Every offseason, people think it would be a great idea to trade out of the first round for more picks, but we haven't done that in 50 years, so I'm assuming we'll stay put.
See you Space Cowboy ...
I wouldn't be pissed if we took an OLB in the first round, but I think that means that the team knows that Jarvis Jones is a total bust and don't believe he can be salvaged (to end up signed by NE and become a star pass rusher). I watched Noah Spence at Ohio State, and if he could have stayed out of trouble he would likely be going in the top 12. I think Dupree is going to be pretty damn good, and if we could pair him with someone who can be pretty damn good (not Von Miller good, likely not finding someone like that outside of the top 10), I think our outside pass rush could be pretty damn good.
However, the Steelers need secondary help badly. There were a lot of plays this season on defense where our OLB's came close to getting to the QB, but because Blake sucks and Allen had to babysit him on coverage and the two of them combines is just not good, the QB knew he could go at those two and get a completion or at least not get picked off most likely. If we don't go CB in FA, but we can get a guy in the draft that'll make a QB think twice about throwing that way, and think twice about throwing at Gay, our guys can get there.
I wouldn't be against going CB/S in the first two rounds of the draft. Improve the secondary and outside linebacker sacks will come. That was part of Denver's success, they had three CB's that could take targets out of the game, and force the QB to hold onto the ball longer than they wanted to.
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