Jury could be out quite a while on this Steeler draft
PITTSBURGH – If I had a nickel for every time Steelers coach Bill Cowher uttered the line about the fine line between winning and losing in the NFL, I’d be rich enough to have taken Sunday off. Instead, I was at Steelers headquarters on the South Side Sunday, when once again, Cowher went off about how close his 6-10 team may be to contending for a championship. He said so just after the team has used the last of its draft picks to select Memphis defensive tackle Sean Taylor.
“We’re not looking to rebuild this year,” Cowher said. “We’re looking to win this division and get into the playoffs and win a championship.”
He and his staff may be in a distinct minority if this draft class excites them. Heck, even Kevin Colbert, the team’s director of football operations, couldn’t get that excited about these players.
Colbert started his press conference by referring to the league’s expanded practice squad, which goes from five to eight players this season. The practice squad, of course, is for players not good enough to make your 53-man roster. So, why get excited about guys who are destined for the practice squad?
“A lot of these kids have that term – upside – attached to them,” Colbert said. “A lot of these kids are not proven or finished as players.”
The Steelers finished their draft class Sunday by selecting a center who spent three years playing defensive end, a defensive end they will convert to an outside linebacker, a tight end who couldn’t even start on a 4-8 Penn State team, an offensive tackle they found while watching film of his teammate and Taylor, who drew this less-than-sparkling compliment from Colbert: “He had the talent to be drafted.”
Actually, there isn’t much difference between this draft class and any other one. At this point, they are just names, followed by heights and weights and colleges. Or, as partner in crime Jim Wexell pointed out, “just because he didn’t make Mel Kiper’s book doesn’t mean he stinks.”
No, but it does make him very obscure.
Pittsburgh’s only memorable second-day pick was fifth-rounder Nathaniel Adibi, a Virginia Tech defensive end they will move to outside linebacker. Adibi is memorable because one of his two blocked kicks for the Hokies was a blocked punt against Pitt in 2002 that led to a Virginia Tech touchdown.
The Steelers got the wrong end of Arkansas’s offensive line when they picked Bo Lacy, who played opposite Shawn Andrews (Philadelphia’s first-round pick). Lacy, according to assistant head coach Russ Grimm, “is a very sharp kid, which is what really impressed us.”
Later in the sixth round, the Steelers drafted Drew Caylor, who played one season at center at Stanford and who is fast for his size, drawing the following response from the media room: “A smart guy from Arkansas and a fast guy from Stanford … what’s going on here?”
Apparently, the Stanford guy is smart enough to know that he can make it in this league as a long snapper. That’s what Caylor does best, long snap. He was a defensive end for three seasons, but moved to the offensive line because that’s where the team needed him. “I think I’m a very solid long snapper,” Caylor said.
Between Lacy and Caylor, the Steelers drafted Penn State tight end Matt Kranchick, a 6-7, 255-pound tight end. He’s another intelligent guy who hopes to join the FBI when his playing career is over. Despite his size, he needs work blocking.
“This is what I’m talking about, this upside,” Colbert said. “He’s going to have to develop as a blocker, but he has good receiving skills.”
Trouble is, the Steelers need a tight end who can block and may need some work on his receiving skills.
After Caylor came Taylor, the guy who impressed the Steelers so much as to make himself draftable.
Add these five guys with the three Pittsburgh drafted Saturday – quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, cornerback Ricardo Colclough and tackle Max Starks – and you have the Steelers 2004 draft class.
Nobody – not Kiper, not Pro Football Weekly, not Sports Illustrated and not The Sporting News – has Pittsburgh taking any of them in any round.
But that doesn’t mean that the Steelers are right and all of the experts are wrong. And it doesn’t mean the opposite, either. Like any other year, all it means is we don’t know what it means.
Former Dallas and Miami coach Jimmy Johnson used to do his best work on the second day of a draft and we didn’t realize that until a couple of years after the fact.
That’s the case here, too. Check back in 2006 and we’ll see whether the Steelers hit the big one or simply bolstered their practice squad.
Mike Ciarochi may be reached at mciarochi@heraldstandard.com