The Pittsburgh Steelers effectively killed two birds with one stone. The franchise, at least since Kevin Colbert came on board, have resisted the temptation to reach for need in the draft.
Yet the Steelers have real needs on offensive line, specifically at guard.
Tonight, in the first round of the 2012 NFL Draft, the Steelers selected Stanford guard David DeCastro with the 24th pick. DeCastro was rated by many as the number one overall guard in the draft.
The Steelers, according to Gerry Dulac of the Post-Gazette, never thought he’d be there when their turn came to pick. Kevin Colbert admitted that they considered trading up when saw DeCastro slipping, but he and Mike Tomlin sat tight and were rewarded.
The Steelers offensive line, once an area of team strength, has been a unit in disarry for the past two years. Although much of the chaos as been caused by injury, the simple fact is that the Steelers “plug and patch” strategy of offensive line building has caught up with them.
They began moving away from that with the decisions to pick Maurkice Pounce in the first round of the 2010 NFL Draft and Marcus Gilbert in thesecond round of the 2011 NFL Draft.
Tonight they took another step by adding DeCastro. Welcome to Steelers Nation David DeCastro
David DeCastro Profile Video, Courtesy of SB Nation
Thanks to Michael Bean, founder and editor of Behind theSteel Curtain, and current head of the SB YouTube video project for pulling this together. For more SB Nation Videos, click here.
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Thanks for commenting Thomas. I sure do hope DeCastro is every bit as good as they say it is.
Man, it would be nice to have a quality offensive line again.