rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Consulting
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- Thread starter RavensMania
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Its 8-10 yrs ago but those guys still played for 8-10 yrs on the team. If we had stanley and brown as our tackles, what sense does it make to double down in draft again?steelers whole oline basically retired the same year lol..Steelers had timmons, after he left, they drafted shazier, after he left they drafted bush.. that isnt a rep for being bad at drafting lbs at all…
They had gilbert, foster, pouncry, decastro and belchaun for years.. so it dnt matter if they were drafted in 2012 if they still
Played for the team in 2020s..
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Shazier hasn't played since 2017. That's four seasons. They drafted Bush, who sucks, and they also play two inside linebackers frequently out of a base 3-4. So, again, they've had basically no good inside linebackers in four years.
There's also five Olineman on a starting group, and close to ten total. DeCastro and Pouncey are about the only two good one's they've drafted in 8 years. That's two. How about Tackles? Marcus Gilbert was average, and he's been gone for 3 years. Beachum, who was never that good, has been gone since 2016. Their LT for several years was the guy the Ravens (including you) couldn't wait to run out of town this offseason.
It's 100% a rep for not drafting quality linebackers or Olineman in the last five years. Its not like they hit a big pile of studs in that group before that either.
How did they struggle though? Im confused like honestly? you acting like steelers draft a whole new team every year lol.. their oline was set for years from them drafting studs in early 2010s which required to not even have to worry about oline as much.. they just had like 3 guys quit football in one year and now all of a sudden they struggling with drafting oline?
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
No, they haven't had good Tackle play for about 5 years now. They just put average players out there and put them next to DeCastro and Pouncey, and nobody cared.
So what happens to a unit that has average Tackles and interior retirements, with no replacements?
What did they expect? DeCastro and Pouncey to play until they were 40?
This isn't rocket science.
Marcus gilbert played really well for steelers bro cmon.. dnt forget about foster also.. they had a very good oline for most if not all of 2010s.. oh ok now you want them to have two stud ilbs lmao. Bush had a good rookie season, didnt play 2nd year so ill show him some sympathy for his 3rd…
So they did the same thing we did when we had yanda… im sure they didnt expect for them to retire out the blue.. you got 3 great olinemen that you drafted and now you can afford to put avg guys next to them in order to have your whole oline looking great as a group… dnt sound like bad drafting to me
You said steelers were bad at drafting oline and lbs and thats not true at all… secondary for sure but def not lbs and oline..
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Certainly not all of the 2010s. That timeline doesn't hold up at all.
In terms of Gilbert, he was average by PFF (and really anybody who watched football) for most of his time there. He didn't play his rookie year, and he was very pedestrian in his 2nd and 3rd seasons, of which he missed a bunch of games due to injury. Had two pretty good years, signed an extension, got injured a bunch after that, missed a ton of games, and then got traded for a 6th round pick.
I don't expect them to have two stud linebackers. One would suffice. Bush tore his ACL in year 2, which would generally be a red flag for a need, and then was actually very bad last year. I'm not sure why you give him a pass for that, but I know the Steelers aren't.
Grim
Ravens Ring of Honor
I wouldn't disagree with what rmcjacket is saying honestly. Recently the Steelers haven't been that great at drafting OL or ILB. They have done a great job in the past, but recently it's been an area where they've had some issues combined w/ bad luck. In a way they are similar to us recently in regards to DL. We've got some guys but none have panned out yet lately when we have historically been amazing at DL talent. I think it just happens when scouts leave and get promotions.
Oh dnt get me room bush def trash lol but coming off an acl isnt easy…. I just went and checked and steelers only spent 4 picks on olinemen from 2013-2019 and all of them were a 4th rnder or later i believe.. you can only do that when your current oline is already holding their own
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Neither was out of the blue. Pouncey was talking retirement for years prior to that, and DeCastro retiring was actually expected the year before he did. Multiple articles out there on it.
When they retired, they didn't have three great lineman. They had two. Those two.
It's bad drafting when you don't address Tackle for 3-4 years after anybody decent is gone, and pretend like some 30+ year old interior lineman are going to save you.
Maybe instead of taking James Washington in the 2nd round, when you already have AB and Juju on the roster, you draft an offensive tackle or a linebacker instead.
Maybe instead of taking Najee Harris in the first round and Freiermuth in the 2nd round, you consider taking a Tackle or a linebacker instead, since neither one of those guys are special (and when you drafted a RB in the 4th round the year before).
Grim
Ravens Ring of Honor
I think part of it is that they just didn't prioritize the position with high picks and picked guys who fit scheme instead of stars. Likely that is because of some of those solid guys they had there and Ben.
rmcjacket23
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And when you don't care about Oline play because you're not super interested in running the ball anymore and your offense is tailored on short passing game, where pass protection isn't as critical.
Bush looked special before his acl injury though and they havent spent an early draft pick on oline since 2011 lol. its because they never had to. I wouldnt call those struggles at all. They have actually spent draft capital on their secondary and we see how that turned out.. thats what you call struggling to draft a position
Grim
Ravens Ring of Honor
I mean, that's a fair point I guess. If you don't spend high picks how can you struggle since you're not making the kind of investment anyway. I suppose maybe a better phrase is haven't honestly tried or cared to add to their OL talent. Part of that is probably more scheme based than anything. Bush was OK I think until his injury. I know some friends who are PIT fans and they never really liked him, but I don't watch enough of their games to comment. Sure, an injury can derail a guy but I also don't know if it can really derail him from looking good to trash. For example, Perriman.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
And that's where we differ. Didn't have to and didn't want to are two different things. They had serviceable play at Tackle during that period, not stud play. They easily could have added a player or two there, instead of some of the selections they made.
If you go back to the original premise, its about draft allocation and how they value positions.
From 2013-2020, they had 25 picks on day 1 and 2. They spent 7 of them on WRs. That's kind of a lot. Number of Olineman taken in that same group... ONE.
And the irony of it all is your claiming they didn't need to draft Olineman because they had so many good one's. OK, so why did they spend like 30% of their high round draft capital on WRs during that timeframe, when guys like AB and JuJu were on the roster for much of it? When they had a RB in Bell who was catching as many balls as high end receivers do?
i must have missed bush looking special lol - think he's been mostly a disappointment the whole time there
even more to your point, they've drafted 3 OL in the last 2 years (1 3rd round and 2 4th round) and 2 are already starters and the 3rd has also started games - i wouldnt say they're all world-beating guys but they've found 2 starters on day 3 in 2 straight drafts (at least until they potentially draft someone higher this year...)