Answering the “Million Dollar Question” following the 2019 NFL Draft
Mama, we made it! After what feels like a year of guessing picks, asking questions, inevitable hair loss, and best of all mock drafts, NFL Draft weekend has officially come and gone. We laughed, we cried, we grew together as men/women. And so begins the next step on the long path to the NFL season; arguing among ourselves. Ah yes, my favorite time of year when we, as fans, aka armchair GM’s, ask each other the million dollar question, “So what’d you think of the draft?”
This question is always great because people ask me every year, all the time, and no matter what level of positivity or negativity (if that’s your vibe) you meet it with, you’re almost guaranteed to engage in some sort of pissing contest with your yinzer neighbor ‘Steve’ about “reaching” and “value”.
The chances of the Steelers, or any NFL team for that matter, picking the player you want in each and every round of the draft are slim to none but we forget that, every single year. We all (myself included) love to think we know what every teams’ draft board looks like and who should be picked when, and who can blame us? In today’s football-crazy world, we’re exposed to constant information; pumped out from media outlets, draft websites, football personalities, our own friends, podcasts. We’re expected to take all that in and form our own original opinions. Good luck with that.
It’s hard to do just that when you’re being told each day that:
“This player sucks at this, but that player would be a GREAT fit doing that!”
“This guy’s a reach.”
“That guy would be a steal!”
“Well, that’s all well and good; we all watch and read the same stuff.”
Is it well and good though? It’s easier to watch the draft specials on TV and skim what you can on Twitter than dedicate the time to watching and breaking down the tape on each and every draft prospect. I’m guilty of it myself. I have a dog, I know what it’s like to be busy.
We’ve all got things to do and places to be, and a majority of us don’t get paid to be “draft experts”. But, you’re doing yourself and these players a disservice if you hate them getting selected for your team largely because you just don’t know who they are and haven’t seen their name in mock drafts.
Honestly, that’s all the more reason to dive into their background and see what they can bring to the table, and more often than not you’ll discover why your team picked them.
Just because a particular player wasn’t the most popular name on so-and-so’s “big board” on TV doesn’t automatically mean it was a bad pick. And if your team does so happen to pick the big-named guy on the “big man’s big board” (insert favorite draft expert here), that doesn’t always mean said player was the best fit for your team. It certainly makes it easier to accept the pick when everyone on TV is praising the player, but easier isn’t always better.
I’m not going to ramble off all the big names in recent drafts who aren’t in the league anymore, and I won’t list the late- round picks or “reaches” who have made Pro Bowls and gone on to be named All-Pro but you guys get where I’m going.
With all that being said, I’m giving this draft a big fat “A” and I’m shouting it from the rooftops. We got freaking Devin Bush and Justin Layne. DEVIN BUSH AND JUSTIN LAYNE!! The mere thought of landing both those guys in the same class was an absolute fantasy as little as a week ago. And the Steelers managed to get them both.
“But, they took Zach Gentry in the 5th round!” say the detractors.
Ya… so, and?
It’s their fifth-round pick and they traded up TEN SPOTS in the first round to get the one player every single Steelers fan on the face of the earth wanted, Devin Bush. They could have drafted my cousin Vinny after that and you wouldn’t have heard a peep out of me.
“Oh, they could’ve got him undrafted!” the narrative continues.
Yes, we would all like to think that could have been the case, but how does anyone who’s not working in the NFL or the Steelers war room during the draft know that? Even Schefter and Rappaport don’t know what’s going on behind those closed doors, as omniscient as ESPN and NFL Network think their employees are, so can we not lose our minds over the Jesse James replacement? Gentry is 6’8″ tall and could end up being a huge star, pun intended. James was a fifth-round pick, too, by the way.
Oh, and heaven forbid the Steelers pass on Alabama linebacker Mack Wilson for Gentry! Wilson didn’t get picked until the 5th round either. Don’t you think there was a reason for that? Isn’t it possible that Draft Twitter and fans don’t have access to things – medical reports, interviews, etc. – that played into Wilson falling as far as he did and not getting picked by Pittsburgh?
The most polarizing part of the Steelers’ 2019 Draft had to be when they picked Toledo receiver, Diontae Johnson, over a handful of “big name” guys still left on the board. D.K. Metcalf and Hakeem Butler were two receivers in particular Steelers fans would have loved to see flash across their TV screen as the next pick in, yet Pittsburgh passed them up. And they passed them up quick.
I’ll tell you guys right now, I wanted Butler in Pittsburgh, but when Johnson was announced as the guy, it didn’t take long to get me on board. After watching breakdowns of Johnson’s playing time at Toledo, it became clear that Butler was the bigger name, but Johnson fits the Steelers offense and Ben Roethlisberger to a “T”. It’s very hard to watch this kid and not be excited about what he can do in Pittsburgh. The Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders comparisons aren’t that far off.
Pro Football Focus isn’t the end all be all in expert analysis, by any means, but every single one of their draft guys was salivating at the mouth over Johnson and how he fit in Pittsburgh. I’m encouraging going AGAINST group thinking, but seeing how quick they all were to praise the Steelers for the selection, while others were simultaneously ridiculing them, was enough for me to take a look at Johnson myself. And in doing so, I fell in love with the pick. I can see why the Steelers had this kid specifically pegged as a target and a high one at that.
That’s what I’m getting at here: give these kids a chance, or at least wait until they give you a real reason to not like them. The Steelers can only trade up ten spots for a player we all were praying for, so many times in a single draft. And they’ve done a lot more research into the guys they picked, knowing the ins and outs of their organization, than any “experts” outside the organization.
If you have problems with the Steelers’ 2019 draft, that’s fine. No one can please everyone that they may meet in life. This is football and people have “takes”; in America, there are plenty of opinions from fans about how the sport should be played and who should be in the jersey their favorite team wears.
I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinion. But, if you’re going to ask me or anyone what they think of the draft, don’t freak out when you get told that what the Steelers accomplished was “dope”.
