Every time the NFL draft ends many NFL draft analysts will give out grades to all 32 NFL football teams on how they think many of them did. These grades are very early and have no bearing on how the draft class will actually play out down the road. It is just an analyst giving their opinion whether they liked their draft class or not. Let me just say you will not know how good of a draft class any team has until 3 years down the road. Each team hasn't even taken the football field yet so how in the world are you going to already give each team a draft grade now?
ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. was not a big fan of the Steelers 2021 NFL draft class. In fact, he gave the Steelers a C+ for 2021. It seems like the Steelers were given the lowest grade out of all 32 NFL teams. Kiper said he doesn't see much value in the Steelers draft class this year, and the offensive linemen the Steelers did end up taking were picked too high.
Mel Kiper on the Steelers draft class: “I’m a big fan of Najee Harris but am almost always against taking a running back in the first round,” Kiper said. “Round 1 is too valuable, and we’ve seen over the past decade that good running backs can be found in any round or even as undrafted free agents. And when I look at this Pittsburgh roster, I see bigger holes. Offensive line, corner, edge rusher could the team have gotten better value at another position?”
It seems like Mel Kiper Jr would have liked the Steelers to take a quarterback in the 2021 NFL draft because one of his big takeaways is the Steelers don't even have a plan for life after Ben Roethlisberger. Little does he know it looks like the Steelers are going to ride with Mason Rudolph for a couple of years after re-signing him through 2022. Who knows even Dwayne Haskins can come around and give the Steelers what they're looking for down the road if he can forget all of the distractions on and off of the football field...
I think it's silly to give out draft grades right after the NFL draft. You never know how each player is going to develop once they get into each team's football system. The Steelers are typically very strong with their first three picks in most of their NFL drafts. So I think it is kind of foolish to hand out early draft grades. With that said let's just see how good the Steelers drafted in 2021 by the year 2023... That is when we truly will find out how good of a class this really turned out to be.
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