Age of the Defense

[Essex Johnson]

(10-30-2024, 09:23 AM)CJD Wrote: I was watching the Steelers game on Monday night and I saw impact plays from several young players that I remember wanting us to draft (Keeanu Benton, Joey Porter Jr, Nick Herbig). And it made me think of our defense. When was the last time we hit on a defensive player in the draft?

It's been a while. So long, in fact, that the majority of our defense is hovering around 30 years old.

Trey Hendrickson - turning 30 in December
Sam Hubbard - turning 30 next June
Sheldon Rankins - Turned 30 last April
BJ Hill - turning 30 next April
Mike Hilton - turned 30 last March
Vonn Bell - turning 30 in December

Even Germaine Pratt and Logan Wilson are turning 29 next summer.

The only young players on our defense are our starting CBs CTB (25) and DJ Turner (23) and then Geno Stone (25).

The young guns that were supposed to come in and inject youth into this defense (Myles Murphy, Joseph Ossai, Jordan Battle, Dax Hill, Cam Sample, Zach Carter) have either not impressed, been injured or been cut entirely (Carter...).

In retrospect, it's not surprising that our defense is so bad this year. The core players get older every year, but we never replace or supplement them due to our drafting failures.

I agree we need to hit better in draft but for Steelers, they have hit on some picks especially on defense but they have misses and mix  especially on offense last 5 to 6 drafts in 1st/2nd rounds 

 2019- traded up for Bush LB, he is gone, 2nd round D Johnson WR gone
2020 1st Claypool, gone
2021-  1st Harris mix reviews, has been benched, disappears some games it seems, 2nd Freiermuth- had one season over 500 yards,
2022 1st-  Picket - gone  Pickens- similar to Harris 
2023-  1st round- Jones OT- low rated OT
2024- 1st Fautanu- had more injury issues than Mims in college, and now out for year with knee injury