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Is Kevin Johnson worthy of 22nd pick overall

Litos said:
then we trade Wheaton for a starting OLB, done deal.
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Wheaton was a solid 3rd round pick. He's a good kickoff return man and a playmaking #3 WR. My worry is the Steelers are not gong to give him a high offer in free agency once his contract is up.
 
Coach said:
Wheaton was a solid 3rd round pick. He's a good kickoff return man and a playmaking #3 WR. My worry is the Steelers are not gong to give him a high offer in free agency once his contract is up.
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my post was kind of sarcastic, but in reality we won't be able to keep him and Martavis if he also develops. Next year the team will probably have to make a tough decision
 
ark steel said:
I think you are saying the same thing as I am. There are 2-3 guys you like and expect to be there at 1.22. You value them somewhat equally, but not quite a 1.22 value on either. If you can trade back a few spots, you expect at least one of them to still be available (maybe more than 1). You still get a guy you would have been willing to take at 1.22 along with more pick(s).
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Ark,

We agree.

I am okay with trading up and offering our 3rd and 6th for either Gregory or Waynes. If this enough to move up 6 to-8 spots? Maybe! Much depends on the team the trade is offered to and if they think they can get a target man at pick #22. San Francisco needs a lot of help, and holds the 15th pick. I think either Gregory or Waynes will be on the board by pick #15.

Round two then would be the positon not picked in round one. Our needs and OLB and CB are about as bad as I can recall.

Harrison is a warrior, but a very old one. After him it's slim picking. Gay is our best DB on the team right now...by far. Give me Gregory or Waynes, and we have a long term upgrade. Johnson looks like a solid #2 or very good #3, corner, but will he really matter enough to fix a unit in need of help?
 
Why the hell do we need a WR, especially in an early round. We are set at our #1, 2 and 3 WR's with good young players. Maybe a late pick to compete for the #4 or 5 WR and special teams. Other than that, we have way more pressing needs. OLB, CB, TE, S, maybe a backup RB and then maybe WR. We need a minimum of 5 D picks and definitely D in the 1st two, if not 1st three rounds.
 
TDX27 said:
Why the hell do we need a WR, especially in an early round. We are set at our #1, 2 and 3 WR's with good young players. Maybe a late pick to compete for the #4 or 5 WR and special teams. Other than that, we have way more pressing needs. OLB, CB, TE, S, maybe a backup RB and then maybe WR. We need a minimum of 5 D picks and definitely D in the 1st two, if not 1st three rounds.
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You can't pass on superior talent to fill a need --- that's taking Troy Edwards over Jevon Kearse, a move that was lamented on this board for years. If the only thing left at pick #22 is OLBs and CBs with 2nd round grades, then wait until the second round to take one. There will be OLBs in round 2-3 and CBs in rounds 3-4 that can help us.
 
TDX27 said:
Why the hell do we need a WR, especially in an early round. We are set at our #1, 2 and 3 WR's with good young players. Maybe a late pick to compete for the #4 or 5 WR and special teams. Other than that, we have way more pressing needs. OLB, CB, TE, S, maybe a backup RB and then maybe WR. We need a minimum of 5 D picks and definitely D in the 1st two, if not 1st three rounds.
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I'm not nearly as comfortable with our WR corps outside of Brown. Wheaton seems like he'll be an alright player, but not sure if it's much more than a No. 3. Bryant has the big-play ability, but can he develop a full route tree? Bring in a guy like Parker and you have a legitimate 1/2 combo with him and Brown--plus his size would be an added bonus.
 
:herewego:
SteelerFan448 said:
I'm not nearly as comfortable with our WR corps outside of Brown. Wheaton seems like he'll be an alright player, but not sure if it's much more than a No. 3. Bryant has the big-play ability, but can he develop a full route tree? Bring in a guy like Parker and you have a legitimate 1/2 combo with him and Brown--plus his size would be an added bonus.
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The pass catching duo could also involve a tight end. There are lots of wide outs in college. It and running back seem to be one of the easiest spots to put in a rookie and have him start. There is no need to try and get elite talent, a possession type would be fine. It might even be possible to pick up a free agent after the cut downs or after the draft. Lots of wide outs to choose from. Bryant progressed nicely as the season went and is likely to continue, he seems to have been influenced in the right way.

The only thing on the team I am comfortable with right now is the Wide Out position on the team. The defense needs help and lots of it. Qb has Ben and no new talent that seems worth a ****. Running back is gone for 3 games and no back up that we are presently thinking is worthy of being a starter. The line is full of high draft picks that are overall not going to be great. Pouncey and DeCastro might be but as of this date they have not made me forget Dermonte Dawson, or Alan Faneca or even think they are likely to be their equals. Our Tackles are not that great. We have Heath at the twilight of his career and Spaeth not far behind.

Defensive line we have no new version of Hampton, Smith, or Kiesel. Tuitt might become a good to great player but it is early, Heyward might become as good as Kiesel who oddly was the least of the three, the other two were that good. At outside linebacker we have James who is likely in his last year and no one else that makes a quarter back nervous. Jarvis is beginning to look like the second coming of Huey Richardson. In the middle we have Timmons and Shazier and Shazier has promise but at this point that is all we have seen. Safety and Corner we are missing Ike and Troy and the best we have at this point is William Gay, Cortez Allen is being paid like a starter but will need to have a major rebound or will be taking the path of Jarvis.

So in this draft if there is any defensive talent out there I would take it over a wide out. If an earth shaking left tackle fell to us maybe if there is a great wide out on the board that is coveted I would trade the pick in a real quick hurry so much so that it would make the sprints to the podium look like they were being conducted by an old lady with a walker.

Not picking on you Steelerfan448 but I think we have more than enough needs to avoid a wide out in the draft or trade the pick.:herewego:
 
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I can easily understand that perspective, but I also wouldn't fault the team if they add another receiver who could possibly help the offense score another 3-4 points per game.
 
While I would love to see the Steelers go defense in round 1 they better not reach for a player that has a round 2 grade just because they have to draft defense. This the freaking NFL....best player available should almost always be the route in the 1st round! The lone exception to that is QB for this team. If they feel Parker or another receiver is their best option to make the team better at 1.22 then so be it as far as I am concerned.
 
Lets just hope we pick smart for the first pick, a player that can play and help right away.
 
185 LB CB....hell no! Ive said it 100 dam times, this draft doesnt have a lot of solid CB talent. The ones mocked to go in the first round aren't even all that good. DONT REACH FOR A CB! If your OLB are gone, go with a top talent at OL, WR, etc. CB's are way too risky in round 1.

To add to my point....do the names like Kyle Wilson, Prince Amukarmara, Xavier Rhodes, Morris Clairborne, Dee Millner, Dennard, Justin Gilbert, etc. People here were slobbing all over their nuts. None of them have done ****...all first rounders. Unless theres a cant miss guy like Revis or Patrick Peterson....stay far away!
 
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It seems crazy but i can totally see them taking a WR in the first. If the top edge rusher are gone and top CBs are gone, then it will likely mean that WR is the best player available by far. A guy like Jaelen Strong or DeVante Parker could make the steeler offense unstoppable. Not to mention, keep him from the Ravens.

Strong is a tall WR with a 42 inch vertical, great hands, fearless over the middle and a very good blocker in the run game. If the choice is adding a guy like Strong or the 4th or 5th best CB or Pass rusher, then i take Strong.

Parker is a more athletic deep threat, more polished than Strong. He's also 6'2 but doesn't pay as big as Strong.

You could make the same argument for going out of the box for a guy like Todd Gurley. I can't see that though because it's easy to play multiple WRs but tougher to play multiple RBs and keep them happy. Blount proved that last year.
 
yes 4 year starter vs raw 10 game starter in Collins I take Jhonson
 
The only knock on say a wide out at 22 is he will not likely be better than Brown or Bryant and may not be better than Wheaton. Now maybe he will be the new number two wide out but finding guys like Brown are not easy, he is an exception to the rule much like Hines was an exception to the rule. They both have different reasons for being great but were great none the less. Unless the wide out is likely to be better than Bryant he is not likely to get that many passes his way in the season.

By using the best player available would you want to take a center? It would be unlikely that the best center in this draft will be picked before 22 but would you really want him since we have Pouncey?

I have postulated that argument to show that there is good reason to find value at a position of need as we have enough needs that it is likely that we can find a good player and fill a need. I for one would rather have a reach in the first round that gets us at least a second round talent than a real talent that does not see the field. If that is the case and it seems like we have talent that is a round behind where we could have gotten them we will have gotten our guys and filled the need which in the case of our defense is very serious. If we do not try hard to fill as many holes as possible this year next year it will be even worse but we will be picking much higher so they might be easier to fill, something that might happen anyway.
 
While the general rule is to always stick to your "board" in drafting players (I don't necessarily trust our board with certain positions...especially the ones we are in most need of this year).

This said, I would definitely take a higher rated WR than a reach at OLB/CB in round #1. In a few years we will be parting ways with AB (we aren't going to pay him top 10 salary are we?) Make the offense even better, score more points and get the defenders as they fall to us in whatever round they come. Our FO doesn't have my confidence in evaluating CB/OLB anyway. The last OLB they drafted looks like he was overdrafted and the last 2 CBs didn't even make the team. The fact that they even looked at Jalen Collins (a non-physical 10 game starter) makes me nervous.

The OLB class is not exciting this year either, There isn't a single dominant OLB IMO who doesn't have just as much potential to "bust" as to be a pro-bowler.

The fact that the draftniks have as many as 8 edge rushers going in the 1st round this year means there will be top players at other positions who will be available to us when we pick. WRs and RBs look to be the strongest in this class as far as depth of talent to me. If we can get one of them now, we can part ways with a soon to be unaffordable player down the road to conserve cap space which is how the system works.

There will be players released we can get as much production out of than an overdrafted rookie anyway. We have to draft the BEST players available, IMO.
 
AB will likely not be unaffordable. He will be highly compensated but he seems to like where he is and will likely be fine with a good contract instead of one that will have him traded or cut because the team that pays him can't afford it. I suspect he saw that with his fellow members of the young money crew. That does not mean he will be cheap but he will be worth what he gets paid.
 
We actually have some leverage with AB because we have the threat of using the franchise tag on him. So it seems likely we'll be able to sign him when he has 1 year left on his current contract. The guys we usually lose are players that are good, but not good enough to be worthy of the franchise tag.
 
Wingman said:
AB will likely not be unaffordable. He will be highly compensated but he seems to like where he is and will likely be fine with a good contract instead of one that will have him traded or cut because the team that pays him can't afford it. I suspect he saw that with his fellow members of the young money crew. That does not mean he will be cheap but he will be worth what he gets paid.
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That depends. It took AB a while to earn praise as one of the best 5 WR's in football. Brown is on the short side, and isn't blazing fast. In that sense he is an unlikely super star. Tomlin said AB is on top his his game mentally ad physically. I concur, but his best stuff is quickness, and sudden moves that stop and start. This can decline with age, and AB's game needs it. Brown will be 27 once the season starts. I would be fine with a 4 year deal that pays " Franchise WR type of money " just not a six year deal.

-JB
 
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Coach said:
That depends. It took AB a while to earn praise as one of the best 5 WR's in football. Brown is on the short side, and isn't blazing fast. In that sense he is an unlikely super star. Tomlin said AB is on top his his game mentally ad physically. I concur, but his best stuff is quickness, and sudden moves stop and start. This can decline with age, and AB's game needs it. Brown will be 27 once the season starts. I would be fine with a 4 year deal that pays " Franchise WR type of money " just not a six year deal.

-JB
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There's no such thing as a 6-year deal in the NFL.
 
AB is THE BEST WR in football, and he has the potential to get better. He has the strongest work ethic I've seen in a WR (and that's saying a lot after Ward). His game compares to Rice. Rice wasn't the biggest, or the fastest, he was the smartest and worked the hardest. It's not just route running, like running the route exactly how it's written. It's running the route and adjusting it slightly to be open in holes of the defense.

AB was doubled, bracketed, hit at the LOS, and played in off coverage. No one stopped him last year. I hate to say undefendable, but he's pretty close to being the hardest WR to defend in the league. Last year he was #1 in receptions and yardage. You don't poo poo a guy with this type of talent. He's gotten better every year, and each year, he finds new records to break. He wants to be an all time great, and to do that, he has to start breaking NFL records. That appears to be where his sights are set.

When his contract comes up again, with that work ethic, with that production, with that high character, you pay the man and make him a lifer.
 
even when AB slows some, he can still work the slot and be very effective. For the next couple seasons, I don't see a need for a WR early. Always take one late ... unless some monster like Calvin Johnson is there for the taking early. Wheaton may be pushed off the roster soon, but even then we don't need to take a WR early. Which is why I have a difficult time entertaining the idea of taking a WR early. We're not going to be the 2000 Rams.

I hope if a good WR is there early (not one of Calvin Johnson potential) that we trade that pick down and get more selections.
 
Superman said:
I hope if a good WR is there early (not one of Calvin Johnson potential) that we trade that pick down and get more selections.
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I think that goes for most of us. I'm not clamoring for a WR at all, it's just that I can see a scenario where we take one even if it is a pretty darn remote scenario. It involves a lot of things happening:

1) The top 5 OLBs (Fowler, Ray, Beasley, Dupree & Gregory) and top 3 CBs (Waynes, Johnson & Peters) are off the board --- unfortunately I think this is somewhat likely
2) Tombert doesn't think very highly of Landon Collins
3) Tombert doesn't think very highly of the O-line prospects left on the board
4) Tombert has a very high grade (top 15 overall) on a WR like DeVante Parker (i.e. Colbert considers him one of the "special" talents in this draft)
5) The phone is not ringing with trade down offers

If those things all line up, why the heck wouldn't you take DeVante Parker and then go get 2 CBs and 1 OLB with your next 3 picks? We used 2 of our 30 pre-draft visits on DeVante Parker and Breshad Perriman --- two WRs who absolutely won't be on the board when we pick in round 2. That means something. Look at the guys we had in for visits last year...we drafted 6 of them and I don't see any guys on that list who were smoke screens...we had some legitimate level of interest in all of them.
 
I'm certainly not 'wanting' a WR as our #1 pick, just saying it is more likely that a 'need' pick at the same grade is likely to be gone at #22.

Do any of us really believe that Tombert has the eval prowess at the OLB spot? Our last #1 looks like a non-physical 'stat' anomaly and the #1 OLB pick before him couldn't play the position and is our starting ILB after a few years sitting behind Foote.

I know we have no previous history with drafting a CB higher than #4 but neither CB picks of the last few years even made the practice squad.

I would however trust they could find a good WR talent as they have shown some aptitude in this area. I also think with Munchak on board, they could find a decent OL if one was there early.

I could be totally wrong about the potential of some of the OLB prospects but only Ray and 'Owa' look like impact guys. Ray for pass rush and 'Owa' for run stopping. Gregory is too lean to be in a 3-4 to hold up the edge, Fowler is Worilds 2.0, Beasley is good but gone for sure, Dupree is not as impressive or strong looking as he should be with his measurables etc., Harold is a reach at #22.

Some teams might only have 1 good CB, some lucky ones have 2, nobody has 3 quality CBs who could cover AB, Bryant and a 3rd top prospect. We could be unstoppable IF we grabbed the right guy who is deserving at WR. We could do well to grab a guy who is physical and can block as well as we have nobody right now at WR who can really help in the run game, IMO.
 
SteelerAl said:
I think that goes for most of us. I'm not clamoring for a WR at all, it's just that I can see a scenario where we take one even if it is a pretty darn remote scenario. It involves a lot of things happening:

1) The top 5 OLBs (Fowler, Ray, Beasley, Dupree & Gregory) and top 3 CBs (Waynes, Johnson & Peters) are off the board --- unfortunately I think this is somewhat likely
2) Tombert doesn't think very highly of Landon Collins
3) Tombert doesn't think very highly of the O-line prospects left on the board
4) Tombert has a very high grade (top 15 overall) on a WR like DeVante Parker (i.e. Colbert considers him one of the "special" talents in this draft)
5) The phone is not ringing with trade down offers

If those things all line up, why the heck wouldn't you take DeVante Parker and then go get 2 CBs and 1 OLB with your next 3 picks? We used 2 of our 30 pre-draft visits on DeVante Parker and Breshad Perriman --- two WRs who absolutely won't be on the board when we pick in round 2. That means something. Look at the guys we had in for visits last year...we drafted 6 of them and I don't see any guys on that list who were smoke screens...we had some legitimate level of interest in all of them.
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I see that as learning from the Mendenhall situation. We had zero data on Mendenhall, yet he was ranked the top RB on the board when we picked. He was certainly not one of the guys expected to fall to us. When he did, we essentially jumped on him. Or, at least that is how I recall it happening. Not saying that is 100% fact. But, bringing in guys like Parker and Perriman at least allow us to have data on them in case they do fall to us... or are most likely the guys there. Would we take them? Hard to say, considering we don't know how they interviewed. Looking at the list of guys we've had in, it just reads like guys who are likely to be taken around our selection... and doesn't truly indicate that we intend to trade up.
 
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