The Pittsburgh Steelers sent a message to the rest of the NFL through the draft over the last three days.
That message?
They are tired of being pushed around on the offensive line.
With the help of the scouting department, head coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Omar Khan made a concerted effort to bolster the Steelers’ offensive line. Pittsburgh used three of their top five picks on the O-Line.
“I would say it’s a little bit of everything. It was a strong offensive line group,” Khan said. “We’ve talked plenty of times about how we feel about the importance of the offensive line, and we got through day one –obviously . . . Even in the fourth round when we had a chance to get Mason McCormick, he’s a guy that we had rated really high up there and we had a couple players at the position who are in the last year of their contracts and felt it was important to address it if he was there, and we did.”
The Steelers drafted Washington offensive tackle Troy Fautanu with their first-round pick and then used their second-round selection to get West Virginia center Zack Frazier. But they were not done there.
Pittsburgh used it is fourth-round pick on South Dakota State guard Mason McCormick. All three guys were at least First-Team All-Conference players and two earned First-Team All-American honors (Fautanu and McCormick).
The biggest thing about all three is their experience. They were all at least three-year starters in college and played in 40-plus games.
“We’re looking for guys with talent. Oftentimes that talent is coupled with experience,” Tomlin said. “It’s good to have a group that is mature as players and as people, and I think that’s reflective of the collective that you’re talking about. All that means is we should expect those guys to have a high floor and maybe have a good presentation of what they’re capable of early on, and for that, we’re excited certainly.”
Tomlin is excited about his three newest additions to the offensive line, but he isn’t sure how they will impact the O-Line room just yet.
“Obviously, we’ll give them an opportunity to do that, but needless to say we’re really excited about having them,” Tomlin said. “As Omar mentioned, we had some testy moments there leading up to our picks but that’s a good thing from my perspective. It means we had guys on our board that we’re excited about the potential of taking, and I think in all three of those instances we were really excited.”
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