2021 draft is brutal

[WindyCitySteel]

Najee is just not a dude, and I know people like chanting "MUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTHHHHHH", but he's just a guy. We could have rebuild our OL with those two picks and filled their roles with later round picks or FAs.

This is just bad.

https://x.com/Alex_Kozora/status/170...232342921?s=20

[SteelerOfDeVille]

I still say: if you gave me Quinn Meinerz instead of K.Green it looks like a team with a vision.

There were some guys that I mocked that year that have outperformed their selections - I won't get into specifics (but, at least 2 of them have rings with the Chiefs )

What I *will* say is that for better or worse, Khan's draft was more aligned with what many of us thought the should have taken

[LAMBERT72]

Najee is just not a dude, and I know people like chanting "MUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTHHHHHH", but he's just a guy. We could have rebuild our OL with those two picks and filled their roles with later round picks or FAs.

This is just bad.

https://x.com/Alex_Kozora/status/170...232342921?s=20

Totally agree. An absolute disaster.

We could have built a fearsome interior line with Dickerson and Creed Humphrey...

Even Nick Bolton as ILB would have been a good pick in the 2nd round... Michael Carter at 3rd round...

Very bad draft. It will hurt us for a long time.

[Joel Buchsbaum]

I still say: if you gave me Quinn Meinerz instead of K.Green it looks like a team with a vision.

There were some guys that I mocked that year that have outperformed their selections - I won't get into specifics (but, at least 2 of them have rings with the Chiefs )

What I *will* say is that for better or worse, Khan's draft was more aligned with what many of us thought the should have taken

Some people said that and mentioned Meinerz in the 3rd round. I was one of them. Where is my Khan high five?

[SteelerOfDeVille]

Some people said that and mentioned Meinerz in the 3rd round. I was one of them. Where is my Khan high five?

It's funny because pre-draft I was in the Dickerson not Creed bunch. Fact of the matter is, either way it would have been a fantastic selection.

By the time they got to the 2nd round and Creed was still there, frankly I expected it. The selection of Muth surprised me.

By the time they got to the 3rd and Meinerz was still there, I was all "jackpot! 2 skill players plus a guy that some projected may go late first anyway"

That selection of K.Green was like a punch to the gut.

High fives around the board on Khan

[Steel Maniac]

I still say: if you gave me Quinn Meinerz instead of K.Green it looks like a team with a vision.

There were some guys that I mocked that year that have outperformed their selections - I won't get into specifics (but, at least 2 of them have rings with the Chiefs )

What I *will* say is that for better or worse, Khan's draft was more aligned with what many of us thought the should have taken

I liked Creed and Meinerz. I thought they were going Meinerz after they passed on Creed. Never in my wildest dreams did I think Colbert would do what he did.

[hawaiiansteel]

Some people said that and mentioned Meinerz in the 3rd round. I was one of them. Where is my Khan high five?

I'll high five you.

I remember you touting Quinn Meinerz and I had us taking Creed Humphrey in my mock sig draft.

[steeler_fan_in_t.o.]

That selection of K.Green was like a punch to the gut.

I'm not a big enough college guy so while I knew the names, and some of the backgrounds, I never try to act like I knew who the best player was. There were a few things I hated about that draft though.

1) Drafting a first round RB to play behind an awful line is pointless.

2) Center was an immediate need. You were drafting a starter and waiting until the third round to do it. At the very least DRAFT A CENTER TO START AT CENTER if you need him day one. Not a freakin project with a handful of games at C.

[SteelerOfDeVille]

I'm not a big enough college guy so while I knew the names, and some of the backgrounds, I never try to act like I knew who the best player was.

The year Big Ben was drafted, for some reason I watched a LOT of college football that year. I found that when the draft happened, I kept saying, "I remember that guy, he's good".

From that point forward draft season became my favorite part of the season and it became a bit of an addiction. I will determine what I believe are team needs, find out who the best talents are at those positions and I watch parts of their games.

So when we come into the draft season and I'm naming guys (Leal, Benton) before anyone knows who they are, that's why.

There were a few things I hated about that draft though.

1) Drafting a first round RB to play behind an awful line is pointless.

2) Center was an immediate need. You were drafting a starter and waiting until the third round to do it. At the very least DRAFT A CENTER TO START AT CENTER if you need him day one. Not a freakin project with a handful of games at C.

100% agree with these, especially #1. The O-line had just turned over completely. And that was a really good draft for OL, so it was a gift wrapped fixer up where I thought they should have gone OL with 2 picks on day 1-2.

For those who have forgotten, that's the Penei Sewell, Alex Leatherwood, Christian Darrisaw (my guy who went 1 pick before Naj), Tevin Jenkins, Liam Eichenberg, Jackson Carman, Dillon Radunz, Walker Little, Sam Cosmi, Jalen Mayfield draft. And those are just the OT in rounds 1-2.

There were a LOT of OT and I think most of them are starters around the league. I thought they should have grabbed one, then took whichever OC fell in round 2/3

IMO, the strategy for that draft was horrible. The game plan didn't make sense given the talent available that year

[NorthCoast]

Funny you bring up the draft because I was just reading through this writeup this morning. Not just 2021 but a further look back.... (2015 was the decade loser).

When a team has average or bad drafts you have to overpay in FA to make up for it and you get lesser players most of the time. When V. Will is your best Day 3 pick in a decade it's saying a lot. I liked Colbert as a GM but the last half of his career he seemed to slide down the charts. Meanwhile our division rival just keeps on chugging (I keep telling you guys that analytics plays a big part the further down the draft you get, teasing out info you might miss on tape on lesser players.)

When a team drafts average eventually you end up with an average team. This is what we are seeing now with the Steelers. You could argue a case that the wins were more about coaching than the talent.

Here's their ranking method:

How we rank: To evaluate the players taken in each of the past 10 NFL drafts (2012-2021), we used Approximate Value (AV) -- Pro Football Reference's method of measuring the performance of every NFL player. We took each player's career AV and measured it against a value based on where that player was taken in the NFL draft -- we're calling it Career Approximate Value Over Expected (CAVOE).

Day 3: Teams Getting Most, Least Value
Here are the five teams that have drafted players delivering the most and least value in Rounds 4-7 of the 2012-2021 drafts.

TEAM CAVOE*
1. Packers 215.5
2. Patriots 115
3. Ravens 111.4
4. Commanders 109.7
5. Falcons 83

28. Saints -23.8
29. Giants -39
30. Browns -47.9
31. Rams -48.4
32. Jets -73.3

* Career Approximate Value Over Expected
For example, players drafted in the first or second rounds have a higher baseline for performance, so if they struggle they will have much lower CAVOE scores than a sixth- or seventh-round pick who made little impact.

To get the team ranking, we added up CAVOE scores for all players drafted by teams between 2012 -- regardless of how long those players were with the team that drafted them. The idea is to see which teams drafted players who have provided the most value over their NFL careers.

We include a look at team records from 2012-2021. Not surprising, seven of the top eight teams in our ranking also had one of the eight best records over the last decade. We also include how teams rank based on the value of Day 3 picks (Rounds 4-7). While Day 3 performance alone did not factor into our overall ranking, it's clearly been part of the blueprint for success for teams like the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens.

A note about comparing older vs. newer draft classes: Older classes have had more opportunity to accrue value, both positive and negative. So, for example, a 2012 class having higher CAVOE scores than a 2020 class doesn't necessarily mean the 2012 class was better. It means the 2012 class has accrued more value over 10 years than the 2020 class has over two .


https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...12-rank-all-32

16. Pittsburgh Steelers

Career Approximate Value Over Expected (CAVOE) of draft picks, 2012-2021: -9.2
Record from 2012-2021: 99-60-2, fifth
Steelers Draft Classes, 2012-2021

YEAR	CLASS CAVOE	TOP PLAYER BY CAVOE (RD.)	LEAST CAVOE (RD.)
2012	12.4	T Kelvin Beachum 46.4 (7th)	OT Mike Adams, -18.7 (2nd)
2013	9.0	OT Le'Veon Bell , 34.1 (2nd)	LB Jarvis Jones, -37.3 (1st)
2014	-31.7	WR Martavis Bryant, 9.3 (4th)	LB Ryan Shazier, -22.2 (1st)
2015	-47.5	TE Jesse James , 8.6 (5th)	CB Senquez Golson, -24.8 (2nd)
2016	-9.8	DT Javon Hargrave , 21.8 (3rd)	CB Artie Burns , -13.7 (1st)
2017	45.1	OLB T.J. Watt 33.5 (1st)	QB Joshua Dobbs, -6.0 (4th)
2018	-0.4	OT Chukwuma Okorafor , 4.5 (3rd)	QB Mason Rudolph -3.8 (3rd)
2019	-5.6	WR Diontae Johnson , 12.9 (3rd)	CB Justin Layne ( -5.4 (3rd)
2020	7.1	Chase Claypool 7.7 (2nd)	RB Anthony MacFarland Jr., -2.9 (4th)
2021	12.4	RB Najee Harris 4.9 (1st)	LB Buddy Johnson -2.1 (4th)
TOTAL	-9.2

Best class from 2012-2021 drafts: 2017. The Steelers nailed the 2017 NFL draft from their first pick when they selected T.J. Watt at No. 30th overall. Watt, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, turned into a foundational piece of the Steelers' defense. After Watt, the Steelers added wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster cornerback Cam Sutton and running back James Conner . While Sutton is the only remaining Steeler of the trio, Smith-Schuster and Conner each made significant contributions during their stints in Pittsburgh. -- Brooke Pryor
CAVOE from Day 3 draft picks (Rounds 4-7): -11.5, 25th
Best Day 3 steal? LB Vince Williams, sixth round, 2013. Announcing his retirement last summer, Williams enjoyed a productive eight-year career with the Steelers and proved to be well worth the sixth-round investment. -- Reid