Steel Balls

The Steelers owe thanks to the Ravens. Click the link and I’ll explain why.

There was a fair amount of fan hand wringing and consternation following the dramatic events of 2015 Draft Day #2, when Ravens GM extraordinaire Ozzie Newsome pole vaulted over the Steelers to nab tight end Maxx Williams in the second round. Many fans had been counting on the Steelers selecting Williams and were inconsolable following the Ravens action, and even more freaked out upon learning the Steelers’ selection of cornerback Senquez Golson. Maybe the Steelers panicked, maybe the Ravens panicked, but it says here that it’s most likely the fans panicked. In any case, Steelers fans owe a debt of thanks to the Wizard of Oz.

The early rumors indicated that the Steelers were intent on selecting Williams and were taken aback and even thrown into a panic following the Ravens trade. Many Steelers fans were in a tizzy, ready to kick GM Kevin Colbert into the sewer. One might show a little caution regarding media rumors, given that the Steelers are famously tight-lipped and are hardly likely to feed blogger blabber about their strategy, panicked or otherwise.

For example, baltimoreravens.com staff writer Ryan Mink reported:

According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Mark Caboly, the Steelers tried to move up to take Williams but couldn’t work out a deal. The Ravens beat them to the punch, moving up three spots from No. 58 to No. 55 – one spot ahead of Pittsburgh – and snagged Williams.

“Wasn’t happy when Ravens picked him,” Caboly tweeted.

Not to doubt the deep insight of a third party tweet, but prior to accepting the accuracy of such hearsay of hearsay one might pause briefly to note that Mr. Mink failed to even correctly spell the name of Mark Kaboly. There was also this odd comment by Mr. Mink:

With Williams suddenly gone, the Steelers took nearly their entire seven allotted minutes to make a decision and selected 5-foot-9 cornerback Senquez Golson out of Ole Miss.

I’m not sure which broadcast Mr. Mink was watching, but my feed from NFL.com and the live updater on CBS.com seemed to show that the Steelers used perhaps 7 seconds rather than 7 minutes. Their pick was entered at almost the same instant that the Ravens’ was in. This kind of apparent fabrication is a cautionary tale in taking media sources too seriously when we can instead actually rely on our own eyes.

A perhaps more accurate portrayal of events can be learned by listening directly to one of the principle actors in this drama. In an interview on ESPN Radio, Kevin Colbert was dismissive of the idea that the Steelers were after Williams.

There were reports that the Steelers were targeting Minnesota tight end Maxx Williams with their second round pick (56th overall), only to have the Baltimore Ravens trade up to jump one pick in front of them and grab Williams. But Colbert said Golson was the player the Steelers had in mind.

“Maxx Williams is certainly going to be a great player,” Colbert said. “It’s going to be a challenge to defend him twice a year. But in all honesty, Senquez had been the guy we had targeted.”

Colbert claimed that the Steelers were not going to leave Round 2 without a cornerback, a strategy that made sense to even casual observers.

“After the first round, we reconvene the next morning and look at what our options are going to be at 2 and 3. Then we talk about different combinations, what you really want to come out of that day with,” Colbert said. “Corner was still going to be a priority because we didn’t address it in the first round. So you look at who might the corners be, who would be taken 2, who might be taken 3, who might be available 4, 5, 6, or whatever. We were very determined to get a corner in Round 2.”

Indeed the Steelers were looking at their own trade-up scenario, not in an attempt to snag a tight end, but rather to secure their cornerback target:

Colbert said Golson was a player who the Steelers were targeting, and they almost felt they had to trade up in order to get him.

“Senquez Golson was someone we thought might be available for us at our pick in Round 2, but there was also discussion once Jalen Collins was picked above him, the options for Round 2 were really cut in half,” Colbert said. “We were more concerned about securing Senquez Golson than anything at that point. As he got closer to us, maybe I think it was within 10 picks or so, we talked about actually trading up to get him to secure the corner. As he got closer to us, the trade wasn’t necessary. He was the guy we had targeted in the second round at our pick.”

There is no doubt that following the selection of edge rusher Bud Dupree in the first round, the undeniable priority was cornerback. In the 2014 draft, the Steelers played the BPA game, continually punting on cornerback because in round after round their value picks were gone and they didn’t want to reach to get one from the next tier. They ended up with one late-round cornerback selection, Shaquille Richardson, who didn’t make the team. Given the 2014 whiff followed by the retirement of Ike Taylor, departure of Brice McCain, and setback of Cortez Allen, the Steelers could not afford the same kind of BPA punting in 2015. Selecting two cornerbacks in the top half of the draft was a must. And yet some were suggesting the selection of a non-critical position such as tight end?

And what about tight end? Granted Heath Miller is not getting younger and his heir apparent was not on the team. But at 33 and apparently fully healed, it looks as if Miller can provide two or three more years of service. Be assured that Maxx Williams, for all his attributes, is no Heath Miller. If he had been selected, he would be seeing very little playing time in 2015, and do you really want to spend a second round pick on a player who will barely sniff the field outside of an injury situation? Further, a receiving tight end is a good thing to have, but not nearly as important to the 2015 Steelers as the teams of years past. With the abundance of top flight receivers, a blossoming offensive line, and a great running back who is perhaps the premier backfield receiving threat in the league, even Heath Miller will not see many targets. No offense to Maxx Williams, but someone will need to explain to me why his selection would make any sense at all for the Steelers.

Now I must explain why I am thanking the Ravens. The truth is, although we would tend to believe Colbert’s version of events rather than some Ravens blogger, we will never know for sure. As such, we should look at both possibilities.

Possibility #1: The rumors were correct that the Steelers coveted Maxx Williams and intended to take him until the Ravens snaked him away. If this were the case, Steelers fans should be grateful to the Ravens for saving the Steelers from making a mistake. Had the Steelers taken Williams, they would not have gotten their 2nd round cornerback. Some think Golson might have made it to their third pick, and if so they may still have gotten him and still been able to take Grant in the fourth. But if so, they would not have gotten a beast wide receiver prospect Sammie Coates. They may well have ended up with an inferior cornerback and an inferior receiver rather than the two players they actually wanted, and instead would have a second round tight end who would have little to no impact for at least one year and probably longer. So thank you to the Ravens for preventing the Steelers from making the mistake of selecting a tight end in the second round and missing out on a couple of other exciting prospects of arguably greater impact.

Possibility #2: Colbert is being honest when he says he had no interest in Williams, had always intended to take Golson and then Coates, and all along was targeting Jesse James later in the draft as his tight end selection (something many of us had predicted in advance). James makes a lot more sense than Williams. Aside from being a huge potential red zone target and probably better blocker with greater upside, as a later round pick there is no rush to bring James up to speed as he will not be expected to contribute early unlike a second round Williams. In this scenario of events, it is not the Steelers who panicked, but the Ravens, perhaps aided by a bit of planted false intel to prompt the knee-jerk Ravens reaction. So thank you to the Ravens for wasting a draft pick to trade up over the Steelers to take a player the Steelers didn’t want anyway. The Steelers have been in the Ravens’ heads for years and that may still be the case.

The Steelers win either way.

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