The NFL Draft has come and gone, and it’s time for life in Pittsburgh to return to normal. (You know… at least until they shut down the Parkway East outbound for a month this summer. But that’s a topic for another day.) As a lover of New Football Toys, I certainly have some thoughts on the guys the Steelers drafted, but this year I get the added pleasure of reflecting on it as an attendee and a local who got to see my home town soak in the rays of the football spotlight for a weekend.
From the standpoint of an attendee… it was nice to experience, but I found that little goes a long way.
The biggest positive — not to do free PR for the NFL — was that the vibes were far more mellow than for a typical NFL Sunday. It really was more of a general celebration of football where yes, there happened to be a whole lot more Steeler fans than anyone else but it largely didn’t matter. Almost no shit-talking between fanbases; fairly little public intoxication. I will say, there was this weird dynamic where being THAT deep in the minority, the fans of other teams seemed like they were happier when they were able to “Where’s Waldo?” a fellow fan of their team. Steeler fans? Omnipresent. All we had was the joy of the occasional deep cut jersey. (The Chris Fuamatu Ma’afala won that one for me.)
We also got great weather for two of the three days, and public transportation really came through as an unsung hero. One of the local companies paid to underwrite free shuttle service from all four compass directions, and the east lot in Monroeville was minutes from where I live. Doesn’t get much easier than that. More generally, it was nice to get Pittsburgh out from under the shadow of Steel Industry Fetishism. I was watching one pre-draft show on Wednesday where they had B-roll from both the Church Brew Works and Phipps Conservatory. (There were limits to that, though: when they came back from the clip package, it was time for the obligatory delivery of Primanti’s to the set. FRIES ON THE SANDWICH!)
The negatives largely fell under the realities of a large corporate event. Large crowds and the fact that anything inside the Green Zone cost an arm and a leg. Anything that was an official attraction was packed to the gills, ESPECIALLY the draft itself. Full disclosure: I never got into the official viewing area and ended up watching Night 1 from inside Acrisure Stadium. So, in essence, my draft experience amounted to watching on a really BIG TV. With $17 beers and $50 T-shirts.
I will also say that watching it live actually made me appreciate how (comparatively) well the draft is packaged for TV. One may think Mel Kiper is annoying, but I promise you that listening to an unwanted playing of “Sweet Caroline” by a cover band is actually worse. And maybe the experience in the cattle pens was different, but at least at Acrisure, we didn’t get the clip packages of the guys as they were selected, which I found myself missing.
I originally planned to attend all three days, but once I was actually in the thick of it… I found that one day was really all I needed. Again, don’t read that as a negative. I just felt like running it back wouldn’t have added any more to the experience. I got to boo Roger Goodell, I got to see the Steelers make a pick. Other than maybe watching Day 2 from the cattle pens, I didn’t see another trip adding much, and my legs vetoed the requisite 5 hours of standing. So… sports bar it was for Day 2, and then Day 3 was “doing other stuff and jumping back in when the Steelers were getting close to picking”.
As far as the Steeler content, I’m not going to go too deep into wingspan and hip-flippery and try to pass myself off as an expert. Just some of the impressions I had while watching.
First things first, I’m in the firm minority that I didn’t see the Makai Lemon thing as THAT big a “failure”. Yes, the optics look bad with the dueling phone calls and Omar Khan pretending Iheanachor was their first choice until the video came out, but it does seem like a thing that’s easy to second guess in hindsight. It took two 4ths for the Eagles to move up. Without advance knowledge of how it would eventually turn out, how hard would you REALLY have pushed for the Steelers to send two 4ths (or more) to move up ONE spot? It’s also worth mentioning that Lemon was also only the third receiver taken while six offensive linemen had already been selected, so maybe o-Line was always the right call. I guess we’ll know at the end of their rookie contracts.
Max Iheanachor (T, Arizona State)
The pick is growing on me. My initial reaction was “didn’t we just do this with Broderick Jones”? Toolsy guy who hasn’t been playing the position very long; has some ceiling but will need coaching to reach it. Sound familiar? But I was talked down from the ledge the more I read: most mocks had him SOMEWHERE in the 1st; they just didn’t have him going to the Steelers because (some combination of) the Steelers didn’t bring him in for a visit, and they generally expected the board to break differently. (In particular, a lot of people saw Fano and/or Ioane falling further.) End of the day, we needed a lineman, we got a lineman.
Germie Bernard (WR, Alabama)
No problem with this choice at all. Continuing the theme, we needed a slot guy, we got a slot guy. Doesn’t have that deep threat aspect, but good at doing the dirty work in the middle of the field. In the moment, I thought maybe we should’ve moved back into the end of the first round and gone after Cooper from Indiana, but (continuing the theme) Bernard feels like the right pick for where we were at that point.
(Lacking anywhere else to place this observation, I also liked K.C. Concepcion quite a bit. I know he had issues with drops in college, but that kid could separate.)
Not to beat the Lemon horse too much, but if you treat the first two picks as a combo platter, I actually do feel like Iheanachor/Bernard makes a better combined pair than Lemon/Sir-Lineman-Not-Appearing-In-This-Film.
Drew Allar (QB, Penn State)
As John Lennon might have said, “Drew Allar is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
My initial thought is the Steelers were either smoke-screening about how much they love Will Howard, or they got played by Aaron Rodgers and he’s not coming back. Almost has to be one or the other, doesn’t it? It just doesn’t seem like Rodgers backed up by two rookies makes a lick of sense: Rodgers is a compete-now move, so… that means Rudolph as a veteran backup, right? And I don’t see them carrying four QBs.
I’ll admit I’m not especially sold on Allar, but I think the “original sin” is letting Rodgers hold us hostage in the first place. I would’ve rather seen come up with a real plan to address the position and told Rodgers to enjoy life as a full-time ayahuasca spokesperson. But once you accept waiting for Rodgers as a sunk cost, if you’re going to take a flyer on a quarterback, might as well be the one with the big arm. At least it’s a 3rd, and not a 1st like Pickett was?
Also, I suspected we’d take a QB, but I’ll admit I thought it would be Nussmeier because of the family connections.
Daylen Everette (CB, Georgia)
Sounds like it’s a bet on tools (size and speed) over technique. There’s no expectation that he’s being brought in to start, so… fine, I guess? (The experts feel like he was a bit of an overdraft, but I’m not going to pretend I know enough to say one way or the other.)
Gennings Dunker (T, Iowa)
Ginger with a mullet? Competes in hay-bale throwing contests? Wears SIX-SEVEN (you know… for the Young People…) Steeler Nation is going to lose their minds when he makes the inevitable “welcome to tahn” appearance at Primanti’s. On-field, sounds like he might move inside to guard for an earlier path to playing time. The only rain-cloud is that it feels like a little bit of an insurance policy in case Itchy doesn’t pan out.
Kaden Wetjen (KR/PR, Iowa)
This feels like some sort of Moneyball–qua-NFL exercise: is kick returning an explicit skill beyond just being fast or having a nose for open space or having the bravery to run full speed at a wall of defenders who are running full speed at you? If it IS, we got the guy who was literally the best at it in the nation, and maybe that’ll be some sort of competitive advantage. If not, we got a small not-exceptionally-fast gadget player when there were more intriguing players still on the board. (And a guy who, ohbytheway, was out on the golf course when he got the call because he didn’t expect to get drafted this high.) Full disclosure: I’m willing to admit I liked Skyler Bell from UConn in this slot.
Feel free to rub my nose in it the first time Wetjen takes one to the house. If he’s that much of a difference-maker, being wrong will be well worth it.
Riley Nowakowski (TE/FB, Indiana)
Utility pick. We needed a FB/TE hybrid to replace Ironhead Jr., Nowakowski seems to have that similar toolbox.
Gabe Rubio (DT, Notre Dame)
No strong impression, beyond “we can’t use ALL our picks on offense, can we?”
Robert Spears-Jennings (S, Oklahoma)
Conventional wisdom suggests we might have gotten a bit of a bargain here. Good physical tools and a hitter. Disappeared a bit his senior year, but was more highly regarded as a junior. No harm in throwing him onto special teams and seeing what he turns into.
Eli Heidenreich (RB, Navy)
I wouldn’t go all the way to “conspiracy” but this always felt a little inevitable. Local kid? Navy man? Just surprised they didn’t have Michael Keaton stick around to welcome him to the stage.
As far as Xs and Os, I’m never sure how to evaluate players from the service academies: there’s no reason they CAN’T be good athletes, but it’s not really their primary job the way it is at other schools. They’re being trained for… you know… Other Stuff… and football is a side hustle for them. In terms of fit, a Kenneth Gainwell replacement would be a nice outcome if it happens. Or maybe I’m just wishcasting along with everyone else.
Mental Zoomies 