The wait is almost over.
Fans, the media and teams, to be quite honest, have been waiting for what seems to be months for the NFL Draft to get here. That wait will end tonight for most teams as the first round of the draft takes place.
For the Steelers, the wait will last a little longer, as the team won't have a pick until the 49th selection, having traded its first-round selection to the Dolphins as part of the deal to acquire Minkah Fitzpatrick.
It also makes mocking a pick to the Steelers all that much more difficult. Their original pick, which the Dolphins now own, would have been at 18. That would have been much easier to nail down.
But at pick 49, so much will depend on what happens before the Steelers make their first selection. They can love 25 players in this draft, but if none of those players happen to fall to them, there's nothing they can do about it.
That's also what makes this wide receiver class so interesting. This is an offense-heavy draft. There is star power on the defense, to be sure, but it's heavily weighted on the upper tier. And then there is a gap between that upper tier at most positions before the third tier begins.
So while the Steelers have some needs at inside and outside linebacker, defensive tackle and safety, it might not make a lot of sense to take a player at one of those positions in the second or even third rounds. That won't be where the value is at. And it might mean they are reaching for a player based on need.
The same can be said at a couple of offensive positions, the interior line and tight end. There are players available at those positions, but the the value in those positions lies deeper in the draft, where there are more tier three players available than there are top-level talents.
The other issue for the Steelers is their offense as a whole. They scored nine offensive touchdowns in their final eight games of 2019. Yes, that can be attributed to not having Ben Roethlisberger available. But it's also, at least in part, because they lacked some dynamic playmakers on offense.
They need touchdown makers.
"We’re going to have Ben Roethlisberger available. When you have that caliber of quarterback available, everybody’s play picks up," Kevin Colbert said earlier this week. "I’m looking forward to having Ben in the mix and seeing how the rest of the group responds with him. We’ll factor that into a lot of the thinking we have as we move forward into the draft."
That's great. But the Steelers also have to acknowledge that Roethlisberger is 38 and coming off elbow surgery. They want to make things as easy for him as possible.
That's what this draft will be about.
So, without any further ado, let's get to my final mock draft of this draft year:
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