The 2016 draft class did not age like fine wine

[hawaiiansteeler]

When you say Edwards, I assume you mean Edmunds from a couple years ago?

Just clarifying

Six Rings can't even get the Steelers' players names right, yet we're supposed to take what he says seriously?

[teegre]

There has to be a balanced. Take the best player at a need. Don't reach but it's ok to take a slightly lower rated prospect at a much more significant need

It depends on how much “slightly lower” and how much of a need it is.

Considering that we’re talking about Burns... I’d say too much weight was given to “need”.

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Bush was a need pick last year and I think it was pretty good.

Sometimes you need to draft for need. Maybe that’s why they call it “need.”

They traded up to make sure that the “need” matched the value of the pick. Had they sat still and drafted Joe McGuy at 20, then it would have been a “need” pick.

[teegre]

@steelreserve
If I recall, you were adamant about taking a gamble on Myles Jack. In hindsight, it was the better option. Oh well.

[Hawkman]

@steelreserve
If I recall, you were adamant about taking a gamble on Myles Jack. In hindsight, it was the better option. Oh well.

Another one of those damn hindsight things. Irritating buggers.

[Steeler-in-west]

All of these players are now gone. Only Hargrave was decent an he didn't even play 60% of the snaps.

1. Artie Burns
2. Sean Davis
3. Javon Hargrave
4. Jerald Hawkins
5. Travis Feeney
6. Demarcus Ayers
7. Tyler Matakevich

its not a bad list if you think about it; Burns was a reasonable pick considering the other top cb’s had already been taken, like WJIII. Steelers gambled on Burns athletic ability.

I think Sean Davis is still possibly our starting FS if Ben doesn’t get hurt. He was at least serviceable

Hargrave was obviously a good pick, Hawkins had a lot of potential but was a victim of injuries. And Matakevich was a good value at 7

the class didn’t pan out, but there are legitimate reasons for that, with better luck it would have been an ok class.

[Six Rings]

its not a bad list if you think about it; Burns was a reasonable pick considering the other top cb’s had already been taken, like WJIII. Steelers gambled on Burns athletic ability.

I think Sean Davis is still possibly our starting FS if Ben doesn’t get hurt. He was at least serviceable

Hargrave was obviously a good pick, Hawkins had a lot of potential but was a victim of injuries. And Matakevich was a good value at 7

the class didn’t pan out, but there are legitimate reasons for that, with better luck it would have been an ok class.

It was a poor class. Davis was below average. He lead the team in missed tackles, had untimely penalties, and made very few plays on the ball. A reason the Steelers picked Edmunds, and he's dangerously close to being a first-round disappointment.


Burns was bust. Hawkins even when healthy looks stiff and under powered.


Hargrave was decent, and Matakevich, a solid special teams guy. The media is big on giving out draft grades once a draft is over. I say wait three years. My grade C-

[teegre]

its not a bad list if you think about it; Burns was a reasonable pick considering the other top cb’s had already been taken, like WJIII. Steelers gambled on Burns athletic ability.

I think Sean Davis is still possibly our starting FS if Ben doesn’t get hurt. He was at least serviceable

Hargrave was obviously a good pick, Hawkins had a lot of potential but was a victim of injuries. And Matakevich was a good value at 7

the class didn’t pan out, but there are legitimate reasons for that, with better luck it would have been an ok class.

Indeed

A few thoughts...

WJIII had a few good games against AB, but besides that, he’s not been much better than Burns. Alexander would have been a good slot guy. And, obviously, Howard was the “correct” pick (if we were going to go for a CB)... although no one knew it at the time.

As Dwins can attest to, in his senior season, Davis was moved from FS to CB our of need. He was a late-R1 safety whose stock dropped due to a bad year (playing out of position). The hope was that we got a steal. Alas, Davis was merely okay / never as good as any of us had hoped.

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Another one of those damn hindsight things. Irritating buggers.

I am amazing when watching reruns of Jeapordy!

[Mojouw]

This is an interesting discussion. But, if we zoom out from just the Steelers point of view and look at the whole league -- https://www.pro-football-reference.c...2016/draft.htm

That was not a good draft class. Like at all. I just quickly took a look at the first round. And I think there are less than 12 guys from that first round that are still on their original teams. There are several players from the second round that are out of football. There are only 14 players from the 7th round that are still on a roster.

So maybe they did average? I don't know, I haven't bothered to look at it team by team. But, bottom line, 2016 was not a good year at the NFL draft for a big percentage of the league. Wasn't that the year that there were supposed to be multiple game changing defensive players available? I seem to remember DT and DB being talked up.

[steelreserve]

@steelreserve
If I recall, you were adamant about taking a gamble on Myles Jack. In hindsight, it was the better option. Oh well.

Nah, that wasn't me. I was more like, it would be great if we had somehow gotten him as part of a favorable deal for that pick, but I was pretty skeptical of his health.

The guy I was really pushing for was Mackenzie Alexander if we drafted a CB (maybe Howard if we did it in the 2nd or with a trade) ... and Andrew Billings if we went DL. I was not too surprised we passed on Billings in the 1st given our history and all the debate over the "value" of DT, but I was ready to start breaking bottles when we kept passing up him, as well as chances at other DTs, in subsequent rounds. Hargrave was a nice completely off-the-radar consolation prize, though.

Jack, Su'a Cravens, Nkemdiche, Howard, Vernon Butler, Noah Spence, both the Alabama DTs that year ... those were all guys with exciting potential that I was hoping maybe we could snag as a double-dip in a fortunate deal, either by trading down from #25 or up from #58, while still getting our "main" guy.

In a rare occurrence on draft day, it looked like several such deals would have been possible that would have allowed that, and some real offers actually did materialize.

In hindsight, many of those deals would have been pretty worthless themselves. Still hard to do worse than Burns-Davis 1-2, though. Ouch.

[86WARD]

It aged like a glass of Michelob Ultra.