2020 NFL Draft: Late-round sleepers the Pittsburgh Steelers should target

The Pittsburgh Steelers have a limited number of picks in the 2020 NFL Draft, including no first-rounder. They will have to make the most of their late-round selections.

The Pittsburgh Steelers will be back in 2020 with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. It will be his sixteenth season in the NFL and yet 2020 might be the most important season of his career. The 2020 NFL Draft for the Steelers will have to reflect that.

This season may very well determine the legacy of Roethlisberger’s career. Whether he will be remembered as a legend who played elite football until the end of his career or the guy who stayed in the league too long.

With Ben turning 38 years old this year, Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert took a chance re-signing him to an extension last off-season. Now they are entering the last years of Roethlisberger’s career, coming off a massive injury to his throwing arm, with no clear succession plan in place.

On top of that, the Steelers have just six picks in the 2020 NFL Draft, with no first-rounder this year as well. The team has just $4 million in cap space heading into free agency, which opens up on March 18.

In short, the Steelers will have to draft for this season. This cannot be a draft where they “build for the future”, setting themselves up to be in a prime situation past 2021. If they want to win another Super Bowl with their future Hall of Fame quarterback, they will have to shoot to do it this year.

While the Steelers cap situation is dire, they only have 15 free agents this offseason. None of whom, besides perhaps Bud Dupree, are expected to be back in 2020. Plus there are other players on the team that will likely need to be cut or traded if they have any hope of signing a free agent or two.

The good news is the Steelers have a pretty complete team. The defense was incredible in 2019, finishing the season ranked fifth in points allowed, per NFL.com. The defense outperformed even the most generous preseason projections and they will return in 2020 mostly intact.

The offense is a less complete unit and they will have to take some real long-shots to round out the offense in the 2020 NFL Draft. With the exodus of Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell in the last three seasons, a large chunk of the team’s offensive production left with them.

With JuJu Smith-Schuster not developing into the clear number one receiver the team expected him to be, along with James Conner’s inability to stay healthy in 2019, the team must focus on offense in the 2020 NFL Draft.

That’s not to say the defense also doesn’t need help. The best they can do with Dupree is either franchise or transition tag him, and that’s assuming he will even play on one. They have two cornerbacks likely leaving in free agency, along with their starting nose tackle. Considering defensive production is usually inconsistent year to year, adding fresh talent is never a bad thing.

With the Steelers having just one pick in the top 100 of the 2020 NFL Draft, Colbert and his scout team will have to focus on checking out college players projected past the third round. In this article, we’ll explore late-round prospects that have the potential to be starters on the Steelers roster in 2020. We’ll briefly explore key positions of need for the Steelers and why these prospects are being slept on by other NFL teams.

Despite what draft analysts will tell you, the margin between second-rounders and fifth rounders in terms of skill set and potential is smaller than anyone would like to admit. Every analyst (myself included) would like to believe they have a firm grasp on the 2020 NFL Draft prospects and have ranked them accordingly.

And yet every season, some player from an FCS school, drafted in the sixth round becomes a star and makes us all look stupid. The reason? No matter how many games you watch or how many times you interview a prospect, there is no way of knowing how hard they are willing to work once in the NFL. No statistic or chart can measure a prospect’s heart and how well they will respond to NFL coaching.

Let us begin exploring some late-round tight end prospects who could help bring the Steelers offense back to life in 2020. For more 2020 NFL Draft coverage make sure to check back with NFL Mocks for the latest in news and analysis.