Tuesday, May 06, 2014

Three days out ...

For crying out loud, let's get this over already.  

We're not going to get much news worth talking about between now and Thursday evening, when the NFL Draft starts. Trades will happen on the clock, not beforehand, and teams are doing their final due diligence. They should know everything about every prospect by now.

The Steelers could possibly trade down from the No. 15 spot, mainly to pick up something close to the third-round pick they dealt to the Browns last year for the right to draft safety Shamarko Thomas.

If the Steelers do trade down, though, that almost certainly puts them below pick No. 20. If Kevin Colbert's assertion that the Steelers have identified 19 prospects as potential first-round selections for the team, then they would be settling for somebody who is not part of that group of 19.

Joey Porter's Pit Bulls believe there is a big dropoff after the top three wide receivers (Watkins; Benjamin; Beckham).  All three of those guys won't make it past pick No. 19. Ditto for the top three corners (Gilbert; Dennard; Fuller); the top two safeties (Pryor and Clinton-Dix), and the top four offensive tackles.

Before the Steelers make a trade, they might want to remember the first-round draft-day trade a previous regime made in 1990. That's when the Steelers traded pick No. 17 overall to the Cowboys for pick No. 21, which the Steelers used on tight end Eric Green and a third-round pick (DT Craig Veasey). 

The Cowboys used the pick they got from the Steelers to select Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith.