Oh, what could have been. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and every NFL fan partakes in it. Whether it has to do with a play call or a player, what-ifs are everywhere in the NFL. We decided to dabble a little into the past with the NFL draft. Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert has had great success with the NFL draft since he took over in 2000.
However, he’s had his fair share of misses. Here is how we would undo the Steelers three biggest NFL draft mistakes of the Colbert era.
2016 CB Artie Burns
For those who followed the draft, the pick of Burns felt desperate. The Cincinnati Bengals had just drafted CB William Jackson, a much better prospect but the Steelers felt the need for a cornerback warranted the reach for a player in Burns who was never a good fit.
The fix: CB Xavien Howard was drafted with the No. 38 overall pick and has turned into an exceptional pro. It wasn’t hard to see on film how much higher Howard’s NFL ceiling was.
2013 LB Jarvis Jones
The Steelers rolled the dice when they drafted Jones. They banked on a highly-productive college player with very little athletic ability could somehow keep up with the speed and strength of NFL athletes. It was a miserable failure and set the Steelers defense back at least two seasons in terms of the pass rush.
The fix: Looking at the Steelers roster from that season, defensive tackle was a definite need. The 2013 draft was a mixed bad but one player we pounded the table for who went later was defensive tackle Kwann Short who was chosen with the No. 44 overall pick. He had been mocked in the first round prior to the draft and certainly deserved it.
2012 OT Mike Adams/LB Sean Spence
We decided to double this one up because the 2012 NFL draft had so much promise and went wrong for very different reasons. Adams was a high risk/high reward pick as he had about as high a ceiling and low of a floor of any lineman in the draft. Spence had a ton of promise and his athleticism was off the charts but injuries completely derailed his career before it ever got started.
The fix: For Adams, linebacker Lavonte David was the player most Steelers fans clamored for. He was a ridiculous talent going all the way back to junior college and is one of the best all-around linebackers of his era.
Moving to the Spence pick, if the Steelers got their linebacker in the second, offensive tackle Bobby Massie makes the most sense in the third. Massie is no star in the league but he has 102 career starts.
