April is almost upon us.
And that means its time for the NCAA’s top prospects to begin their rounds of visits to prospective NFL teams. Each NFL team is allowed to host 30 collegiate prospects at their facility prior to the draft. Visits from nearby by schools do not count against the limit, hence, the Pittsburgh Steelers can workout players from Pitt in for pre-draft visits, as Pitt is local (heck, the Steelers share a facility with Pitt you can’t get much more local than that.)
The Steelers approach to providing information about these visits has been “interesting” to say the least. In some years they’ve announced the visits. Other years they’ve begun announcing the visits only to mysteriously stop the announcements.
- Information leaks out anyway.
Beat journalists from the Post-Gazette, Tribune Review and free lancers like Jim Wexell are on site and observe the visits first hand. Or coaches and/or scouts leak the information. And if neither of those two work, agents leak the information.
Thus far the Steelers have extended pre-draft invitations to:
Randy Gregory, Defensive End, Nebraska
Kyle Emmanuel, Linebacker, North Dakota State University
Cameron Clear, Tight End from Texas A&M
DeVante Parker, Wide Receiver, Louisville
Shane Ray, Defensive End, Missouri
The presence of Randy Gregory is of course interesting, as Gregory failed a drug test for marijuana at the recent NFL Scouting Combine. Historically the Steelers have stayed away from players with off the field issues like that, although 2012’s 2nd round pick Mike Adams also failed a drug test, but worked himself back into Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin’s good graces.
Note, these visits have only been announced, and have not been conducted yet and it is hardly unknown for agents to leak that their clients are visiting a certain team, only for those visits to never materialize.
Steel Curtain Rising will do its best to keep you abreast of the visits ahead of the 2015 NFL Draft.
