Each year, for the last several, we write up our “what they look for” studies when it comes to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ draft picks. Simply put, using physical and athletic benchmarks (height, arm length, 40 time, three-cone, etc.) to determine minimums that incoming prospects must reach to likely be on the team’s radar.
In recent seasons, that endeavor has become more difficult. As prospects do less and less in the pre-draft process, often skipping certain drills entirely, it’s been harder to find a pool of candidates to evaluate, let alone ones who tick every box. This has made me wonder if this study was useful or, at the least, if changes needed to be made.
But the 2024 Steelers draft class is proof these results still have value. We studied six position groups, the ones the team was most likely to draft, and came up with only 14 prospects who checked every single box. By the end of the draft, Pittsburgh had taken three of them. All of their Day Three picks came from this pool: OG Mason McCormick, DL Logan Lee, and CB Ryan Watts.
Here are the 14 who qualified.
Steelers 2024 “What They Look For” List
Joe Alt/OT Notre Dame
Blake Fisher/OT Notre Dame
Frank Crum/OT Wyoming
Ricky Pearsall/WR Florida
Jordan Whittington/WR Texas
Logan Lee/DL Iowa
Ruke Orhorhoro/DL Clemson
Maason Smith/DL LSU
Darius Robinson/DL Missouri
Tyrice Knight/ILB UTEP
Nick Gargiulo/iOL South Carolina
Mason McCormick/iOL South Dakota State
Dominic Puni/iOL Kansas
Ryan Watts/CB Texas
Which is not a large number. If we had a pool of 80 players and a couple of them hit, that’s just playing the odds. Cast a wide net, and you’ll hook a couple of fish. But we had just 14 with no position group having more than four names. Some, like cornerback, only had one. And over 20 percent of this list hit.
And yet three of them became Steelers in the draft. Mason McCormick in the fourth round, Logan Lee in the sixth, and Ryan Watts with the team’s second and final pick of the sixth round. McCormick had size and athleticism. Lee lacked length, which we’ve floated is less important along the d-line, but had size and speed, while Watts lacked long speed but had size, length, and explosiveness.
What about the other four picks? They’re clearly not on the list and we conducted studies at all those positions. Let’s see where they fell short.
Troy Fautanu/OT Washington – Height, SS/3C (DNP)
Zach Frazier/C West Virginia – Height
Roman Wilson/WR Michigan – Vert/Broad (DNP)
Payton Wilson/ILB NC State – Arm, Bench (DNP)
As has become the case with many prospects, many of the categories here were simply because players didn’t test. If Fautanu had tried the shuttle drills, the low bar set there would’ve likely meant he’d check those two. Still, he would’ve missed in height as a short (but long) tackle.
Frazier missed in height by just a hair and was part of our “one box away” committee. Wilson definitely would’ve hit the vert and broad minimums but alas, he didn’t try them. Wilson has a severe lack of length but probably would’ve hit the bench had he attempted, especially with the benefit of short arms helping him there. Still, Roman Wilson was the only player who had a chance to check every box had he participated fully. All three others missed in some objective measurement evaluation, height or arm length.
Overall, the data is encouraging. Frankly, it’s the most successful year of our “look for” studies we’ve had. While Omar Khan’s drafts have been different compared to Kevin Colbert’s, they’ve become more predictable. A higher concentration of picks from the team’s pre-draft visit list and this study aligning with nearly half the class. It’s something else to keep in mind when making your mock drafts in 2025.