Steelers Could Pay Expensive Price And Trade 2nd, 3rd, And 4th Round Picks For Center Zach Frazier

The Pittsburgh Steelers will make their first-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft on Thursday, April 25th. Omar Khan and the organization are currently scheduled to have the 20th pick. In his first effort, Khan pulled off multiple trades to move up and down the draft board during the 2023 draft. It resulted in the best Steelers draft class in a decade, and anything could still happen. 

The mock draft season has reached its peak, and the names at the top of the Steelers' draft boards are changing constantly. Last week, Graham Barton became a very popular name for the Steelers to select. Amarius Mims and JC Latham are still popular choices. A couple of Pac-12 tackles have been consistently associated with Pittsburgh as well in Troy Fautanu from the Washington Huskies, and Taliese Fuaga from the Oregon State Beavers, which, if true, would break the current seven-year streak of skipping over players from that conference. 

On Monday, Pro Football Focus released a seven-round mock draft in which 32 staff members assumed the roles of general managers for every NFL team. Simon Chester, who according to his X bio is a part-time staff manager for PFF, was chosen to represent the Steelers and make their pick. Given how fans of the Black and Gold currently feel about PFF and their role in robbing TJ Watt of the Defensive Player of The Year, it is not surprising they didn't bother to assign a full-time employee. 

Chester opened the festivities by selecting Fautanu from Washington. Mims and Barton were still on the board, and he chose floor over ceiling by going with the Huskies tackle. Fautanu is a known commodity, starting over 35 games for the Huskies at left tackle. He is projected as a right tackle in the NFL, but he does not have much game experience at the position during his tenure in Washington. He is a physical run blocker, but there are questions about how he and his short arms will hold up as a pass protector in the NFL.  

In round two, fan favorites Barton and Jackson Powers-Johnson were taken by the Dallas Cowboys, and the Miami Dolphins, and were off the board. Chester tried to channel his inner Khan and moved up from 51 to 34 to select Zach Frazier, the West Virginia center. It is hard to argue with his logic about the position, but it is even harder to see the Steelers trading picks 51, 98, and 119 to the New England Patriots for Frazier without at least one pick in return.  

"With the top two centers off the board already, the Steelers move up (overpay?) to get their center of the future in Zach Frazier," Chester opined. "He is another physical presence to pair with Fautanu, and the coaches will love his core strength that stems from a wrestling background. The experienced West Virginia product (2,584 snaps) should project to be an opening-day starter."

Getting Frazier at pick 34 is solid value and a position of need, but it is hard to envision the Patriots' new general manager, Eliot Wolf, fleecing Khan like this. It is absolutely plausible that the Steelers use 51 and a third-round pick, but throwing in the fourth seems like taking advantage of the part-time employee who is supposed to impersonate one of the best general managers in the business. It is also possible that by trading away three picks for one was a way to limit his hours on the clock. Farfetched? It is PFF; it's as good an explanation as any. 

After concentrating on the offensive line with his first two picks, Chester uses pick 84 on a wide receiver. He selects Devontez Walker from North Carolina. The PFF staff picked 17 wide receivers before the Steelers selected Walker in the third round. He did make the leap from Kent State in the MAC to the ACC and produced at a high level in 2023. 

Walker averaged an eye-popping 17.1 yards per catch in eight games. He is 6'1 and 1/2" tall and posted a 4.36-yard 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine. There is work to be done on short and intermediate routes, but he could be an intriguing weapon in Mike Tomlin and Arthur Smith's offense opposite George Pickens. The improvement demonstrated while rising to a higher level in 2023 is an encouraging sign of how Walker may fare as a rookie in the NFL.

After trading away picks 98 and 119, the PFF part-time employee returned to pick another wide receiver with the second pick in the sixth round with the Georgia Bulldogs' Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint. He followed that by finally choosing a cornerback with the Steelers' final pick, Ryan Watts from Texas. 

Steelers' Omar Khan Joins TJ Watt In Being Disrespected By Pro Football Focus

Under Chester and PFF's stewardship, the Steelers selected a tackle that is probably better suited to move to guard at the NFL level, traded away three picks for an elite center prospect, and finished by taking two wide receivers and a cornerback. 

Based on this performance, it is hard to understand what is going on at PFF. First, they downplay Watt's undeniable results on a football field, and now they are projecting Khan to follow up a stellar draft in 2023 with an uneven effort in 2024. Luckily, Cris Collinsworth and his stable of Bill James wannabe's will be far away from the Steelers' draft room on Thursday night.