5th or 30th, doesn't matter where Steelers draft

The Steelers will pick their first player of the 2024 NFL Draft Thursday night.

Unless a trade is made, they’ll have the 20 ^th pick.

With the team middling over the past several years, the Steelers have picked toward the middle or bottom of the draft, basically since 1971.

The team took DT Joe Greene 4 ^th overall in 1969 and QB Terry Bradshaw 1 ^st overall in 1970.

Since then, the team hasn’t drafted 5 ^th or lower, yet have won six Super Bowl titles and have appeared in eight championship games.

The Steelers traded up to 14 to take Broderick Jones in last year’s draft and traded up to 10 in 2019 to take Devin Bush.

Jones is only heading into his second year, so we don’t know how his career will look just yet and Bush ended up being a big bust.

Let’s take a quick look at the last 10 years of draft picks (which hasn’t been great) and grade them.

2014 – Ryan Shazier 15 ^th overall : A unfortunately his career was ended by injury
2015 – Bud Dupree 22 ^nd overall : B- When he was paired with T.J. Watt he started to emerge and left, signing a big deal with Tennessee
2016 – Artie Burns 25 ^th overall: F
2017 – T.J. Watt 30 ^th overall: A+
2018 – Terrell Edmunds 28 ^th overall: C- (okay player, wasn’t a first-rounder)
2019 – Devin Bush 10 ^th overall: F
2020 – No Pick (traded to Miami for Minkah Fitzpatrick)
2021 – Najee Harris 24 ^th overall: Been fine so far… B-
2022 – Kenny Pickett 20 ^th overall: D (traded to Philly)
2023 – Broderick Jones 14 ^th overall (no grade yet)

So, what are we getting at?

Basically, it doesn’t matter where the Steelers draft. Over the past few seasons there have been fans and sports personalities saying the team should just tank and get a higher draft pick.

But it really doesn’t matter. Over the past 10 years, their best player drafted, T.J. Watt, was taken at the end of the first round.

Bush was taken 10 ^th overall and the team didn’t even exercise his 5 ^th -year option.

Draft position isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Unless the Steelers have a top 3 pick, don’t worry about where they end up picking in the 2025 draft or in the near future.

As long as Mike Tomlin is around, the team will at the least be around .500 and will be picked around the middle of the pack.