The Steelers haven't taken advantage of the NFL's rules to allow video conference calls with draft prospects as of yet, but that will soon change.
According to Kevin Colbert, the team is trying to keep its schedule somewhat the same through troubling times as it deals with the rules surrounding social distancing because of the coronavirus outbreak. Those conference calls will take the place of personal meetings the team would have had with prospective draft targets and begin taking place later this week.
"What we’re doing, this would have been the week we would have been at the owners meetings. We would have been going back to pro days on Thursday and doing some interviews on site at places," Colbert said via conference call Tuesday night. "What we’re going to do, the visits we had planned when we got back from the owners meetings, we’re going to do video/audio interviews with those players. That’s good access. It’s not as good as sitting down with a guy in person, but we’ll make the most of it and get the information we need."
The NFL canceled its spring meetings, which would have begun last Sunday and run through Wednesday a month ago.
The league also put in place some limits on how teams can conduct their draft process that include the video chats after on-campus pro days were canceled. It's not an ideal way to conduct the pre-draft process, but Colbert has been meeting via video chats with his scouting staff and the Steelers coaching staff the past week and a half to formulate a draft plan.
The three-day NFL Draft remains scheduled for April 23-25.
"It actually hasn’t been too bad. We’re all in the same boat," Colbert said. "We don’t have pro days and most likely will not with the restrictions put out until April 30. We’re prepared for that. We did evaluations throughout the fall. Between the scouts and myself, we probably had three or four looks at all the top prospects. Once the season is over, we get the coaches involved. We’re missing the pro days and the personal visits we would be doing, but all the meetings, we’ve been in the meetings for a week and a half and the meetings have been going great. We’re doing them from our homes. So far, so good. We’ve had no complaints."
One thing that is perhaps working in the Steelers' favor is that they traded two of their top three picks in this year's draft in deals to acquire All-Pro safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and linebacker Devin Bush. The Steelers sent their first-rounder to the Dolphins as part of the deal for Fitzpatrick, while the Broncos have their third-rounder as part of the deal for Bush.
The Steelers still have six picks -- one in the second round, a compensatory pick at the end of the third, two in the fourth, and one each in the sixth and seventh rounds. But with less information available on prospective players, that might not be a bad thing.
"Under the current circumstances, the uncertainty of the player you might be taking, not having all of the information you would have had in the past, I’m a lot more comfortable knowing we got an All-Pro player with that pick," Colbert said of Fitzpatrick and the possibility of moving up in this year's draft. "I’m not real concerned about getting back in there. There’s really good depth in this draft. I feel good about who we can get in the second round and beyond."
He also feels pretty good about some of the moves the team has made in the offseason.
Regarding how defensive lineman Chris Wormley, who was acquired via a trade with the Ravens along with a seventh-round pick in 2021 for a 2021 fifth-round pick, Colbert said he envisions better depth on the defensive line.
"Chris is somebody we were very interested in coming out of the University of Michigan. We liked Chris a lot," Colbert said. "He’s got the typical 3-4 defensive end body type. He’s played in a similar-type defense. In today’s NFL, your base defense is really not your base defense any longer. Package defense is. Chris will be able to give us depth along the line, especially in the sub packages, especially from the inside. In the base defense, my assumption is he’ll be used as a defensive end. Again, 75 percent of the time, we have two defensive tackles, and he would be one of those in the sub packages."
As for tight end Eric Ebron, who officially signed his two-year, $12-million deal with the team Monday, Colbert sounded excited to add an athletic pass catcher who can perhaps make the offense more dynamic.
Ebron had 13 touchdown catches in 2018 and has averaged just over 51 catches per season in the past five years.
"When Eric came out of North Carolina, we really liked Eric, but we knew we had no chance of drafting him," Colbert said of Ebron, who was the 10th overall pick by the Lions in 2014. "He’s a super-talented pass receiving tight end. He had some injury issues last year. But when he is healthy, he really did some nice things, especially the year he had Andrew Luck playing with him. There’s definitely athleticism. There’s red zone production. There’s run after the catch. He’s really a premiere kind of receiving tight end in this league when he’s healthy. It’s hard to predict health, but when he is healthy, he is a solid contributor and will give us another weapon in the passing game."
And with the uncertainty surrounding the league right now -- though the NFL is still planning on starting its regular season in September -- having veteran players to fill holes might be preferential to counting on rookies, who might not have much of an offseason program from which to learn.
"Nobody knows what our calendar is right now," Colbert said. "No changes have been made. That’s something that continues to be monitored and watched. We as an organization have to be prepared for whatever."
