Former Undrafted Steelers Players Have a Chance to Be Next Best Thing

I was scouring the FanSided network this morning to see what’s going on in the world of football, and I came across a really interesting article over at Nice Pick Cowher. Interestingly enough, this post has nothing to do with any pick Cowher made, but a few undrafted free agents signed in the Mike Tomlin era.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are well-known for developing their own talent, similar to the Packers or Ravens, or some team like that, and part of that process involves finding hidden gems in the undrafted free agent pool. Former undrafted player Willie Parker out of North Carolina came out of nowhere to be a star running back in the league for a couple of years and a key player in their Super Bowl run.

This year, they have Isaac Redman, an undrafted free agent in 2009 who is going to be taking the full workload at running back with Rashard Mendenhall out with an injury. Redman did really well in a playoff game last year against the Denver Broncos. Here is what Dom writes at NPC about Redman’s forecast for this season:

"Redman will be called upon to shoulder the load in the running game this year.  Hopefully Redman can up his total Attempts to somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-250 this season as the team’s #1 option in the RB by Committee system.  As long as he stays healthy though, Redman should be able to do it, because he is a tough player who has kept on exceeding our expectations over the last three seasons."

Be sure to check out the rest of the article for an in-depth look at defensive lineman Steve McClendon and offensive lineman Ramon Foster and how they can make an impact this year after also going undrafted in 2009.