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Now for my regular post.
The reason I posted this stuff was I was going to bet that more players from so called small schools would be drafted in the 1st 128 than the Big School Div I players. But now I'm not so sure there is such a thing as a small school. Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders, Ball State Cardinals DivI?? Bet's off!
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[INDENT]Turning our attention to Steeler Draft Trends, let's look at some of the easy ones to follow first. To begin, we'll take a look at the trend that the Steelers follow in regards to 'big program' selections, and see which college football programs & divisions seem to capture Steeler attention most.
Starting from the obvious position- By Round:
ROUND 1
2007- ACC Florida State
2008- BIG 10 Illinois
2009- BIG 12 Missouri
2010- SEC Florida
2011- BIG 10 Ohio State
2012- PAC 12 Stanford
ROUND 2-
2007- BIG 10 Michigan
2008- BIG 12 Texas
2009- No Pick
2010- ACC Virginia Tech
2011- SEC Florida
2012- BIG 10 Ohio State
ROUND 3-
2007- BIG 10 Minnesota
2008- PAC 12 UCLA
2009- BIG 10 Wisconsin
- SEC Mississippi
- PAC 12 Oregon State
2010- CONFERENCE USA Southern Methodist
2011- BIG 12 Texas
2012- ACC Miami (FL)
ROUND 4-
2007- BIG 12 Baylor
- BIG 12 Oklahoma State
2008- BIG 12 Texas
2009- No Selection
2010- BIG 10 Ohio State
2011- SOUTHERN Citadel
2012- PAC 12 Washington
ROUND 5-
2007- BIG EAST Rutgers
- BIG EAST Louiseville
2008- PAC 12 Oregon
2009- CONFERENCE USA Central Florida
- MOUNTAIN WEST UNLV
2010- SEC Tennessee
- ACC Clemson
- PAC 12 Utah
2011- WAC Fresno State
2012- SEC Florida
ROUND 6
2007- No Selection
2008- BIG TEN Iowa
- BIG EAST West Virginia
2009- PAC 12 Oregon
2010- ACC Georgia Tech
- MID AMERICAN Central Michigan
2011- BIG 10 Nebraska
ROUND 7
2007- SEC Florida
2008- No Selection
2009- BIG TEN Penn State
- SUN BELT Arkansas State
2010- BIG 10 Ohio State
2011- BIG 12 Texas Tech
2012- PAC 12 Colorado
- PAC 12 Oregon
- SEC Texas A&M
- CONFERENCE USA SMU[/INDENT]
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Breaking that down further we see that, in the first 3 rounds- the premium draft picks, if you like, there is a real cluster of conferences to follow:
19 picks since 2007 (Tomlin/Colbert Era)
Big 10- 6 picks
ACC- 3 picks
Big 12- 3 picks
SEC- 3 picks
PAC 12- 3 picks
Conference USA- 1 pick
31% of the Steelers top 3 round picks come from the Big 10. Arguably the next best 4 conferences have provided just under 16% each in the ACC, Big 12, SEC & PAC 12. In other words- the level of competition matters to the Steelers. No small school reaches in the first 3 rounds.
Of the overall 50 draft picks in the Tomlin/Colbert era:
Big 10- 11 picks 22%
PAC 12- 9 picks 18%
BIG 12- 7 picks 14%
SEC- 7 picks 14%
ACC- 5 picks 10%
Conference USA- 3 picks 6%
Big East- 3 picks 6%
Southern- 1 pick 2%
Mountain West- 1 pick 2%
WAC- 1 pick 2%
Mid American- 1 pick 2%
Sun Belt- 1 pick 2%
As you can see, the Big 10 really dominates Tomlin/Colbert drafts with 22%, nearly a quarter of the Steelers draft picks from 2007, from that conference. PAC 12 has a handy 18%, nearly a fifth- although this was boosted greatly last year when 4 players from the PAC 12 were selected. Big 12 & SEC get a handy 14% of selections, while the ACC provides 10%.
In other words- 78% of all Tomlin/Colbert draft picks come from these conferences.
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When you break the picks down by school- patterns are much harder to find. There are, however, 4 schools that have provided 3 or more players to the Steelers:
Ohio St- 4 players
Florida- 4 players
Oregon- 3 players
Texas- 3 players
Of note, Florida has provided 3 picks in consecutive drafts in Rainey, Gilbert & Pouncey (the other being Dallas Baker in 2007). Ohio St has provided 4 players in the last 3 drafts, and like Florida, a 1st & 2nd round pick among them- Adams, Heyward, Thaddeus Gibson & Doug Worthington. The last Texas player selected by the Steelers was Curtis Brown in 2011 (although it's now being reported he was Option 2 after Demarcus Van Dyke). Before him it was 2008 that provided the other Texas players- Tony Hills & Limas Sweed. Oregon have not provided a high draft pick- all late round guys- Paulson, Dennis Dixon & Rashon Harris.
So what can we take from that? Well, it would seem Ohio St or Florida are strong chances at providing an early draft pick for the Steelers, and that's about the sum of it..
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The next trend to break down is position. What positions have the Steelers targetted in the draft since the beginning of the Tomlin/Colbert Era?
QB- 1
RB- 5
WR- 6
TE- 2
OT- 3
OG- 5
OC- 2
DE- 5
NT- 1
OLB- 5
ILB- 4
CB- 7
FS- 1
SS- 0
K- 0
P- 1
Of these picks:
1st Round- 1 ILB, 1 RB, 2 DE's, 1 OC, 1 OG
2nd Round- 1 WR, 2 OLB's, 2 OT's
So that is 6 picks out of 11 that are along the LOS. On top of that- 5 of those 6 were picked in the last 3 years- so they are still developing players. That's a lot of high investment along the lines, and probably gives an indication how Tomlin & Colbert like to build their draft boards, and indeed, their team.
Surprisingly, 2 of the Steelers stronger positions- CB & WR, are not heavily represented early in the draft (although Round 3 produces a large number of CB's & WR's- 4 of the Steelers 8 3rd round selections under Tomlin/Colbert have been CB/WR).
LB has 3 of the top 11 selections under Tomlin/Colbert- and this likely gives an indication on the focus away from the LOS. The Steelers are, by Tomlin's definition, a run & hit team. And having talented guys to run & hit seems a must.
What we can take from this is that one of the Steelers top 2 picks, at least, is likely to be a guy that plays on, or around the LOS.
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If we now look at positions that may have been neglected under Tomlin/Colbert, we'll see 5 fairly obvious ones.
Firstly, QB. Under Tomlin & Colbert only 1 QB has been drafted- Dennis Dixon. Now, being realistic, this is in part mostly due to the team having a firmly entrenched starter in Ben, and a couple of vets in Batch & Leftwich who the FO have great confidence in. That said, at some point, players get old, and now might be the time to add a young QB to the roster.
Secondly, TE. Under Tomlin & Colbert, only 3 TE's have been drafted, and one of those was shifted to FB (Johnson). The argument for the firmly entrenched starter can be used again, as Heath Miller has held the #1 job for some time. That said, it might be time to add a younger body to the mix.
Third- NT. This one has been Chadman's bugbear for a while, as Casey Hampton did not do as instructed and get younger. He in fact, got older. And it was only in 2012, in the 4th round, that the Steelers thought about adding a player through the draft for the NT position. Now, to be fair, the Steelers did pick up UDFA McLendon, and recently added Fangupo to the roster- but for such a vital 3-4 position, to wait until 2012 to address the situation is, at best, cutting it fine. Even then, there are still question marks about all 3 options. It's not out of the world of possibility, that a NT could be drafted high in 2013.
Free Safety & Strong Safety- we can add these two positions together for the 4th & 5th point, as they play a similar role & are, by Troy Polamalu's admission, almost interchangable spots for the Steelers. Since 2007, the Steelers have added 1 Safety in Ryan Mundy through the draft. The fact that both Troy & Clark are entering the twilight of their careers & there are no suitable replacements on the roster in place goes a long way to showing what Chadman thinks about the preparation & time invested into the Safety position.
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Well, are there other trends to follow?
Of course there are!
Easy one to go here-
2007- Round 1- Defense
2008- Round 1- Offense
2009- Round 1- Defense
2010- Round 1- Offense
2011- Round 1- Defense
2012- Round 1- Offense
2013- Round 1- ?
2012- Round 1- Senior (22yo)
2011- Round 1- Senior- (21yo)
2010- Round 1- Junior- (20yo)
2009- Round 1- Senior- (22yo)
2008- Round 1- Junior- (20yo)
2007- Round 1- Junior- (20yo)
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Nearly 100% Div I schools. Never noticed that before. It's pretty much the same going back the entire decade.
Talk about mis-perceptions. I always liked to think the team was finding hidden gems where no one thought to look. Not so. That was only because I had no idea some of these lesser known schools were actually Div 1 schools. For example: Ike Taylor. I figured TS found him hiding under a bush in some remote school in LA. Not so, Louisiana-Lafayette is also a Div 1 school. Same with Antonio Brown Central Michigan has grown into a Div I school.
I guess it makes no diff where the players come from as long as they can play.
But it is surprising that there are no Div II schools on that list.[Not sure]
However, it is nice to see that there are at least 2 players from Div II schools in mocks. Keith Pough and David Bass.
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Restructuring:
Ed Buchette was saying were not gonna be able to restructutre guys like we did last year and save a bunch of $. Only ones it would be feasable were: Heath, AB, Wood, Timmons, Ike.
What do we think about extending Ben... yes he has 3 years left. But he has a huge # this year and Buchette says we really wouldnt have the room to re-do him again. So what if we just extended him. We could surely drop a lot of his cap 3 from this year...
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[QUOTE=zachintosh66;548670]Restructuring:
Ed Buchette was saying were not gonna be able to restructutre guys like we did last year and save a bunch of $. Only ones it would be feasable were: Heath, AB, Wood, Timmons, Ike.
What do we think about extending Ben... yes he has 3 years left. But he has a huge # this year and Buchette says we really wouldnt have the room to re-do him again. So what if we just extended him. We could surely drop a lot of his cap 3 from this year...[/QUOTE]
Wouldn't argue that there's only a few viable 'restructuring' options. Not even sure you could include Taylor in the restructuring possibilities, to be honest.
Extending Ben....yes. Given the situation, cap-wise, and the projection that it's not going to be drastically better next season, the Steelers need to find a way to reduce Ben's cap hit. He's 32, for a RB or a CB- that'd be a problem. But for a QB... they could feasably get another 6 years out of Ben. The key is to not have a $20m cap hit as a 38 year old..some creative contract structuring may be required.