Maybe I’m crazy, but I was happy the Steelers didn’t have a chance to pick Jabrill Peppers. I don’t really know how highly the Steelers had Peppers rated, or whether he would’ve been chosen over T.J. Watts, but I just never<a href="http://www.coltsshopauthentic.com/shop-by-players-21-vontae-davis-jersey-c-1_11.html">Vontae Davis Womens Jersey</a>  understood what was so attractive about Peppers.

* His versatility made for some interesting highlights, but too much of that stuff would devolve into gimmickry in the NFL, and exactly how much value would Peppers as a running back bring to a team that already employs Le’Veon Bell?

* But what really made no sense to me were the assertions, the belief, that Peppers would become “the next Troy Polamalu.” Based on what, I have no idea, but the whole concept of chasing “the next (insert name of great player here)” is a fantasy. When has that ever worked out in sports? Any sport? Even with any coach in any sport?

* There’s a chance that a football team might have one great quarterback follow another, or have one great receiver follow another, but the idea that there can be a duplication of style, to me, can be the kind of thing that bogs down a front office with a fool’s errand.

* The next Joe Greene? The next Sandy Koufax? The next Jack Ham? The next Michael Jordan? The next Mel Blount? Those players were singular talents and unique individuals, and any effort made to duplicate what they once contributed <a href="http://www.officialchargesshop.com/shop-by-players-joe-barksdale-jersey-c-1_28.html">Joe Barksdale Youth Jersey</a> or who they once were as players is wasted time. They were one of a kind. That’s what made them so special in the first place.

* The next Chuck Noll? Imagine the waste of time and effort and talent on the roster if Dan Rooney went searching for that instead of simply hiring the best man for the job among the available candidates. Bill Cowher was an emotional and demonstrative coach on the sideline, and he saw value in motivating his players, which in fact made him the polar opposite of Noll, who regularly told his players, “If I have to motivate you, I’ll fire you.”

* The same with Mike Tomlin in following Cowher. The differences in their sideline demeanors are evident, and yet both men found ways to be successful while staying true to themselves. The last coach the Steelers hired before turning things over to Noll was a former Packers assistant named Bill Austin, who came to Pittsburgh and tried to do the job the way he had seen Vince Lombardi do it in Green Bay. Austin was 11-28-3 and fired after three seasons.

* Maybe Peppers develops into an All-Pro player, but if that happens it won’t be because he’s the next Troy Polamalu. It will be because he maximized his abilities as the first Jabrill Peppers, and my fear was that in Pittsburgh there would’ve been too much interest in looking for him to be The Next Troy Polamalu. Maybe by the coaches in how he would have been deployed, but definitely by the fans in what was expected in terms of impact and style of play.

* Of the Steelers’ eight draft choices, three<a href="http://www.officialvikingshop.com/shop-by-players-michael-harris-jersey-c-2_27.html">http://www.officialvikingshop.com/shop-by-players-michael-harris-jersey-c-2_27.html</a>  made pre-draft visits to the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex: Joshua Dobbs, James Conner, and Keion Adams. And it’s worth noting that Conner, because he attended Pitt, was considered a local prospect and didn’t even count against the limit of 30 visitors. Some additional perspective: the team’s No. 1, No. 2, No. 3a, No. 5, and No. 6 picks did not visit.

* Keep this in mind next year when some website pirating the Steelers name and logo breathlessly informs the public about pre-draft visitors, with the implication that there is some direct correlation between visitors and picks.

* On the Monday before the draft began, General Manager Kevin Colbert assessed the talent pool this way: “On offense, there are good numbers at wide receiver. The offensive line probably isn’t as deep as it has been in recent years. The tight end numbers are up some over recent years. There are good numbers in the secondary. There are good numbers for the outside linebacker candidates. Decent numbers for the defensive line.”

* To attach numbers to his assessment, there were 15 combined guards and centers picked, 32 receivers, 56 defensive backs, and 32 linebackers.

* One of the fallacies of this draft was the notion that it would be OK for a team looking for help in the defensive backfield to wait before picking one because there was such depth of talent there. History might prove that there in fact was a lot of depth of talent among the defensive backfield prospects, but teams certainly didn’t wait long to pick from that pool.

* There were 30 defensive backs among the first 101 overall picks (29.7 percent), and at the time of the Steelers’ second-round pick, which <a href="http://www.officialvikingssale.com/shop-by-players-jeff-locke-jersey-c-2_19.html">http://www.officialvikingssale.com/shop-by-players-jeff-locke-jersey-c-2_19.html</a> was the 62nd overall, they were looking at the 20th overall defensive back vs. the sixth overall wide receiver, as an example. When Oakland made Obi Melifonwu the 24th pick of the second round, the 56th pick overall, it represented an all-time NFL Draft record for number of defensive backs selected to that point.