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One More Trip to
the Store, Please
by Tom Hayes (5/30/01)

Overall, the Steelers have done a decent job of retooling for the 2001 season. Still, there are a couple items that I would like to have seen them pick up at the Big & Tall (& Fast) Outlet Mall this offseason. Setting the ever present QB debate to the side for the moment, and ignoring most depth issues, here are a couple thoughts on this team's potential shortcomings:

Wide receiver. How many number one picks does it take to screw in this lightbulb? Perhaps more than two. I'm glad that the Steelers offensive line now seems to be a strength. In my view, it'll have to be because this team STILL might not be able to sufficiently stretch the opposition's defense enough to alleviate the now all-too-familiar traffic jam at the line of scrimmage. I might as well tell you up front, I'm going to withhold comment on Mr. Burress' rookie "effort" and pick on Troy Edwards here. Troy just doesn't fit the deep threat mold. Of the 17 wideouts who posted more than 1000 yards in receiving in the NFL last season, all were big or fast. Many were both. The smallest men among them stand at an even 6 feet. At 5'9" and "more quick than fast" Troy might yet end up being a good receiver - he might even grow up to be Wayne Chrebet - but he's not going to scare many people deep and you should get that when you take a receiver in the first round. I can't help but think back to the draft two years ago when we expected that either Torry Holt or David Boston would fall to us. Had that actually happened, we'd have that guy as WR #1, Burress as #2 and Ward/Shaw/Blackwell in the slot. That sounds like a winner. A healthy Yancey Thigpen would have been worth far more than the veteran minimum salary for the same reason. I give the Steelers some credit for trying to address the issue by taking speedster Chris Taylor in the 7th round. I hope this is the guy they wanted - there was a mini run on speed receivers before their pick. At any rate, if he makes the team that might be a step in the right direction, but he won't start and therefore will be unable to drag anybody down the field on running downs this year.

Remember our defensive line in the mid-90s? Ray Seals, Joel Steed and Brentson Buckner each tipped the scales at over 300 pounds - Steed was actually the lightest at the time - yet the ends could rush the passer fairly well. That was the foundation of a killer D. Now, after several - pardon the pun - "lean" years I find myself liking the Steelers projected 2001 starters of Kimo Von Oelhoffen, Casey Hampton, and Aaron Smith. What bothers me, though, is that Hampton is the only "two gap" nose tackle on the team. Granted, that's one more than we had last year, but this year - without lineman-sized Levon Kirkland plugging the run - the need to hold multiple offensive linemen up at the line of scrimmage will be magnified. And unlike many other positions, defensive linemen (particularly 3-4 defensive linemen) often play in a rotation. So who's gonna spell Hampton? Did Kendrick Clancy pack on thirty extra pounds while we weren't looking? I think the team should have considered getting another run stuffer in the late rounds, especially since most of the world seems unimpressed with what we did get. In the sixth round we could have added massive (6'3", 342 lbs.) Mario Monds instead of the undersized and underachieving Rodney Bailey or the even more lightly regarded Roger Knight. Monds was selected a few picks later by Cowher's mentor in DC. Or perhaps in the seventh, instead of selecting "plays slower than his 40 time" receiver Chris Taylor, we could have snagged 6'4", 308 lb. Ennis Davis, who was taken just three slots later by the Saints. Now I know I said some nice things about the Taylor pick just one paragraph ago, but Davis (or Monds) could've helped THIS year. The main knock on each of these guys was not that they lack talent but that (according to TSN) they were not in the greatest of shape. Hey, that's a helluva lot more correctable than being small or slow. If the team is willing to gamble first round picks in '98 and '99 on the idea that the player can learn motivation, what's wrong with doing that in the late rounds where talent is so limited? Besides, it's entirely possible that ANY of the guys we took in the last two rounds would still have been available to us as undrafted free agents.

These are not fatal flaws and I could be proven wrong, but they top my early list of worries. Oh, and one more thing. Can anybody on this team boot a kickoff into the end zone?

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