If we look at the current Consensus Mock Draft,  for the Steelers in the first round here’s the picture:

There are some guys you’d hope might fall somehow…. However, Spikes and McClain have been snapped up.  The big Tackle Davis from Rutgers has been taken.  The premier nose tackle in Dan Williams made it past Miami and Denver only to be snapped up by the 49ers.

Every year it seems that there is a parting between the top tier guys and the next bunch.  This year it looks like that drop off is right around #16 or so.

So who’s left at 18?  There are some good value guys hanging around.  Bulaga is a pretty safe bet as a RT.  Charles Brown could develop into a good LT.  Iupati would be an upgrade at RG.  The Steelers could upgrade at all of these positions.  Last year any of these OL guys would have been a quality pick.

This year things are different.  This year deficiencies at Safety and Corner became apparent.  This year James Farrior and Deshea Townsend lost a step.  This year Casey Hampton and Ryan Clark are free agents.

The depth at linebacker is severely depleted.  Larry Foote’s departure erased a lot of  the depth at ILB.  Bruce Davis did not make it as an OLB.  In fact, the Steelers were very fortunate to stay healthy at outside linebacker.  The OLB backups were shuffled extensively based on their abiliy to play special teams.  This shuffling is a not so subtle indicator of the backups’ discardable abilities on defense.

So who’s here at #18 to fill some of these voids and what are the other options.

Sean Witherspoon has purportedly been scouted by the team (Tweeted by Jim Wexell).  It’s an unusual news item since Witherspoon is mostly thought of as a Will LB in a 4-3.  However, He has great skills, great leadership and a good football IQ.  The Steelers would look at him for use as an ILB most likely.  The conversion might seem like a big deal but considering he’s going to spend half a year at Dick LeBeau University before he has any idea what he’s supposed to be doing, it’s probably not a huge deal.  The knock on Witherspoon is that he might not be good enough versus the run, making him essentially another version of Timmons.

Sergio Kindle was a great prospect going into the National Championship game and he shone brightly in the spotlight.  He would make an attractive candidate for an outside linebacker project.  This is another scenario where he’d be in school basically for the better part of a season learning the defense.  This would be a solid pick to address a real depth concern.

Patrick Robinson out of FSU is the top corner left at this point.  The Steelers drafted 2 corners last year and did not see much production from them.  In this kind of situation it’s really difficult as a fan to know how those guys are doing other than they’re not doing well enough to unseat the starters.  Burnett half cracked the line-up towards the end of the year, rotating with Townsend and Gay.  In my mind, Townsend Gay and Burnett are about equal in skill.  A talented corner could potentially move right into the #2 role. A quick glance at the big board shows a herd of corners with round 2 grades however so it might make sense to wait a round on this need.

At Nose Tackle, Dan Williams is already gone… you have Terrence Cody and Brian Price as possibilities.  Both are currently rated quite a bit lower than #18.  NT does not seem like a good value here.

One consideration here would be to trade down and get some additional early round picks.  My apologies to the prime time audience for the first round but this is a pretty sound idea.

So who might trade with the Steelers for this spot?

Kansas City is in the market for OL, showing an interest in multiple guards in fact.  They might be willing to trade Picks #36 and #52 for picks #18 and #113.

I asked the Online Draft Simulator what this trade would bring the Steelers and here’s the result for the first 4 rounds:

#36  Earl Thomas – Outstanding underclassman FS out of Texas.  Good value and it addresses a need.  Note that NT Terrence Cody and OC Maurkice Popuncey are still available under this simulation.

#51  Trevard Lindley — CB out of Kentucky will compete for #2 or #3 spot. This addresses a need and it’s a decent value.  Other corners such as Javier Arenas are still on the board.

#52 Darrell Stuckey — Top tier Talent at SS from Kansas boots Tyrone Carter from the team!  Potential to contribute right away on special teams and in nickel packages.  Polamalu get’s the understudy he’s needed for years.

#83 Vince Oghobase — The ODS picked a quality prospect at DE in the third.  Kam Chancellor (S) is still available in case you’d picked Cody at #36.  Toby Gerhart (RB) would be tempting here.  However  DT Jerrell Powe is still on the board and probably represents a more rare commodity than Oghobase.

All in all it looks like a pretty successful scenario.  Depending on your choices you have a couple of ways of getting 2 safeties, a corner and a Nose Tackle by the middle of round three.  Pretty solid start to a draft!