Steelers’ draft process comes into question by NFL insider

Anyone with an impartial view of the NFL is likely to believe that the Pittsburgh Steelers nailed the draft.

Grading out as one of the best classes in the league, Pittsburgh's haul started at the top with LT Troy Fautanu.

But according to Tony Pauline of Sportskeeda , Pittsburgh may have been better off going elsewhere:

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Shouldn't Have Drafed Fautanu?

In Fautanu, the Steelers are getting an athletic, mobile blocker similar to who they selected a year ago in Broderick Jones. And while it’s never a bad thing to have two of those players, they let the best cornerback in the draft slide by when they passed on Mitchell. Honestly, the answer to this question won’t come for two to three years.

-Tony Pauline, SportsKeeda

The first pushback I've seen on the selection, Pauline actually raises a good question.

But If you're Pittsburgh, the process is simple.

You compare players on your big board. If Fautanu has a higher grade than Mitchell, you take him, no questions asked.

But if Pittsburgh had the two graded closely or the exact same, then you compare them across the horizontal board, where you weigh the best player available and positional need.

And while we aren't privy to (or at least not officially) the Steelers' draft board, we know a few things are true.

First, Fautanu was in the running for second-best tackle in the class and plays a more premier position.

Yes, corner is one of the five blue chips (QB, WR, LT, CB, EDGE) but no position outside of QB is as valuable as the left tackle position. This draft also happened to be the richest group of tackles in recent memory and likely will be for a while when forecasting the future.

The same can't be said for corner. It was the opposite, as the group was believed to be one of the lesser classes in some time. Mitchell, who has Pro Bowl potential and was arguably the best CB in the draft fell to 22 and was not viewed the same as players like Jalen Ramsey or Patrick Surtain II as prospects.

So really, the decision was simple.

Pittsburgh knew that LT needed to be addressed more than CB #2. They also knew that the odds of them being able to draft a blue-chip tackle at 20th overall (or later) ever again are slim to none, and so they did just that.

Related: Grading the Steelers 2024 Draft Class: Pittsburgh accomplishes goal of getting bigger, tougher, faster