Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert made a comment on Monday that has just boggled my mind. Colbert said "Quite honestly, I don't envision anybody coming in and being an impact in Year 1," Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert said at Monday's pre-draft news conference. "I never do because I think there is always a growing process that has to occur. (The draft is) really no more critical than any other year because I don't see any player coming and being an immediate impact player,"-ESPN
He doesn't envision any potential draft pick making an impact this upcoming season. The his second quote about his reasoning is because of a growing process. Well duh. Of course there is a growing process but why say that you don't envision your draft picks to help out this year? That's just a dumb statement to make publicly, especially during the worst offseason of the Colbert/Mike Tomlin era.
For the record, the Steelers have lost:
Mike Wallace
James Harrison
Rashard Mendenhall
Chris Rainey
Keenan Lewis
Ryan Mundy
Will Allen
Casey Hampton
Their additions are Bruce Gradkowski, Matt Spaeth, and William Gay.
They went 8-8 last year.
And now you're telling the fans that you don't think any of the rookies will make an impact? Well considering that the entire 2008 rookie class is gone and no rookies many any significant impact last year, I guess Colbert is just speaking the truth.
From the sounds of it, the Steelers are going to draft an outside linebacker in the first round that will either replace former second round pick Jason Worilds who will have never been a full-time starter, or the lineback (most likely Jarvis Jones) will sit for a year or two and literally make no impact.
Then the Steelers can draft a safety in the second round and have him sit behind Troy Polamalu and Ryan Clark for a year or two. At least he would have a chance to play though because Troy will most likely get injured.
Growing up a Steelers' fan and now being a blogger for them, this has been tough. I have yet to write anything optimistic about this team yet. What Colbert said yesterday made me go "Man, why on earth would he say that? Well, at least I'm going to be able to make a blog post about it".
I mean it's not like the Steelers haven't had any rookies make an impact over the years. Ben Roethlisberger, Kendrell Bell, Heath Miller, Maurkice Pouncey, Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown are just a few that come to mind that helped this franchise as rookies.
The Steelers front-office needs to wake up. Their mentality is a complete 180 from Ray Shero and the Penguins mindset. The Penguins want to want, expect to win, say they're going to do everything to win, and then they go and put together the best team possible. Can you honestly say that Colbert and the Steelers can say that?
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