First-round draft picks are a big deal. If you doubt that, consider that the NFL has broken the draft into three days rather than two this year, devoting Day (or, more accurately, Night) One to a single round. This is where the "special" players are drafted -- the guys who can come in and start right away. Last year, the Steelers drafter at #18 and picked Markice Pouncey to play Guard. He merely earned a trip to the Pro Bowl as a rookie. As a center.
So it would seem to be sacrilege on the surface to suggest trading out of the round altogether. Here's the rub: coach Mike Tomlin has said there are 20 "special" players in this year's draft, and the Steelers pick at #31. Even if two or three teams ahead of them reach a little to fill a need position, it's almost a given that all 20 of those players will be long gone before the 31st pick comes around.
In fact, by the time that pick rolls around, all the positions at which the Steelers have a big need may have been picked clean of top-tier talent. That means they will be using a first-round pick on talent that could go anywhere from the bottom of round one to rounds four or five, depending on a particular scout's evaluation or a bad Pro Day.
Case in point: Texas' Aaron Williams (CB) is the chic pick for the Steelers. But he isn't breathing the draft's stratosphere like LSU's Patrick Peterson or Nebraska's Prince Amukamara. He's breathing Los Angeles smog along with Brandon Harris of Miami and New Mexico State's Davon House. These are guys who could go as high as #25 or so, or as low as sometime Saturday afternoon. And, with about six to eight options in the same general range, taking a chance of finding one a little later on is a good thing.
Okay, so if something outstanding happens -- like Phil Taylor (of Baylor, who undoubtedly would have been a favorite of Dr. Seuss) lasting all the way to 31 (not likely) or Florida's Mike Pouncey falling into the 20s (far less likely) -- then I could see Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin giving serious consideration to staying put or trading up a little. But these are unlikely scenarios, no matter how awesome it would be to see the Pounceys playing shoulder-pad-to-shoulder-pad for the next decade or so. You can't trade a pick for "Awesome", so that idea is pretty much hot air and nothing more.
Consider this scenario: any combination of Christian Ponder, Andy Dalton, Ryan Mallett and Jake Locker are still available at pick #31. Six of the next 14 picks after 31 belong to teams in need of a quarterback (assuming they didn't take one of the two or three guys generally assumed to be first-round talent) either immediately or in the next one to three years: Buffalo, Cincinnati, Arizona, Tennessee, Washington and San Francisco. Oakland and Jacksonville aren't far behind, either. That's eight teams vying for four or five quarterbacks who could still possibly be starters in the NFL, and they all pick in the next 18 slots. There are other teams in that mix who would like to start working on a #2 QB, like Cleveland, Dallas and Minnesota, who could snatch up one of these guys. If any one of those teams wants to guarantee they can get their man after drafting at a different position in round one, the Steelers are in a great position to pass on a borderline guy like Aaron Williams and hope to either snag him several picks later or go after someone like Ras-I Dowling -- a first-round talent if you factor out recent injuries -- all while netting another pick or two in the mid to late rounds of the draft.
Given a situation similar to that one, they don't give much up, because this year's draft presents a situation where all the premier talent at the team's biggest need positions are likely to be gone by the time they go on the clock, leaving them to pick from the muddled middle -- a group of guys whose exact order is hard or impossible to figure out.
If one of the top guys plummets down draft boards in the next six hours, then they should by all means snap him up if he is still available around 11:30 tonight. But, if things play out as most pundits expect, the smart move would be to back away from the podium, collect an extra pick or two, and come back when making a pick makes more sense.
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