A Blast from the Past: Fifth Round Picks, Part 2

Jim O’Connor, USA Today Sports

Since the Steelers had three picks in 2010 in the fifth round, I gave them their own post. We’ll continue with the 2011 pick, LB Chris Carter. He made the 53-man squad for three years, which is pretty good for a fifth-round pick, but only started one game during that time.

Three picks later in the 2011 draft the Ravens took DE Pernell McPhee with their compensatory pick, and McPhee played really well for them until they lost him to salary cap hell when they hit free agency.

Evaluating the Steelers’ 2016 Draft Picks: WR DeMarcus Ayers

Photo: Jon Shapley, staff, Houston Chronicle

Unlike the majority of the Steelers’ picks, Ayers wasn’t even on my radar in the lead-up to the draft. This was hardly his fault, of course, so let’s remedy this right away! Once again I’ll begin with the material from the NFL scouting report and continue on from there.

The NFL evaluators graded Ayers at 5.02 and projected him as a UDFA. I’m not going to get crazy with the numbers like I did yesterday, but I’ll just note that there were 16 guys graded lower than Ayers who were picked up in the 4th, 5th, and 6th rounds.
Ayers declared for the draft a year early, which led to the following comment in the “Sources Tell Us” section:

“Should have gone back to school and worked on his craft. Right now I don’t think he can distinguish himself enough from others at that same position. I need to see those system guys transcend the scheme and I didn’t see it.” — NFL personnel director

A Blast from the Past: Today’s Question We Were Debating Back in the Day

SA Today Sports/Charles LeClaire

On October 26, 2011, Hombre de Acero wrote:

The 2011 NFL season is 7 weeks old, with Week 8 rapidly approaching. The Pittsburgh Steelers are 5-2 and riding high on a three-game win streak. But all three wins have come against less than stellar competition. The Steelers took care of business and are now set to begin the “varsity section” of their schedule starting with this week’s game against the Patriots. Which brings us to this week’s 5 Burning Questions:

But rather than debate the present, Hombre first speculated about the “top-flight nose tackle” the Steelersi n his created scenario, drafted in the spring of 2012. Which as we all know didn’t happen. Nor did Hombre necessarily think it would. But it is interesting to reflect how far the team has evolved in one year under Defensive Coordinator Keith Butler that hardly anyone is talking about how we ought to look for a Casey Hampton type.