How Has Omar Khan’s First Draft Class Fared? Steelers 2023 NFL Draft Mid-Year-2 Grades
How has Omar Khan's first draft class as Pittsburgh Steelers general manager fared in their second year so far?
We are officially at the midway point of the 2024 NFL season and the Pittsburgh Steelers are currently sitting alone at the top of the AFC North race. Now that we have a larger sample size to work with, now feels like a good time to do a check-in on their 2023 NFL Draft class. If you recall, general manager Omar Khan received glowing reviews for his additions in his first go-around as the head man in charge. An old-school way of defining what makes a successful draft class is simply adding three starting caliber players in any given year and at the time of this writing, it feels appropriate to say that Pittsburgh’s front office checked that box with this group.
Let’s talk through each of these players progress at this stage in the development process. For full transparency, the grades are not only indicative of ones performance on the field but the expectations that are associated with being selected in their respective rounds. Here we go.
STEELERS 2023 NFL DRAFT MID-YEAR-2 RE-GRADE
Round 1, Pick 14: OT Broderick Jones
There’s no way to sugarcoat just how much Broderick Jones has struggled in his second season. His issues in pass protection are the result of a myriad of fundamental issues including but not limited to: improper strike timing and placement, giving up his chest to power, crossing his feet or bending at the waist after two hand lunging. According to PFF, Jones ranks 65th out of 78 tackles that have played 20% of their teams snaps this season in pass blocking efficiency on true pass sets and that’s in a scheme that limits those exposures quite well. As a prospect, it was well-known that Jones was mostly winning on athletic tools without much technical refinement to his game but as the competition level has risen, he’s been unable to win off athleticism alone.
When Jones was inserted into the Steelers lineup last season, he gave them a boost in the run game. Even if it wasn’t consistent, you saw glimpses of eye-popping plays particularly in space as a puller, on the backside of run plays or just getting up to the second level. The woes in pass protection aren’t surprising but what has been shocking to see is how much he’s struggled as a run blocker. The play strength and raw power that was routinely on film at Georgia is nowhere to be found right now. Even when his hat placement is correct, Jones hand placement is consistently too wide and his base gets narrow on contact leading him to fall off blocks in an instant. He still looks mobile in space but there have been multiple occasions where he appears confused on which defender to target once he gets there.
RELATED: Offensive Line Guru Blasts Broderick Jones for Poor Effort
Then there’s the seven penalties on top of all that, a couple of which have wiped away an explosive play or touchdown. When Pittsburgh traded up into the top-15 of the 2023 NFL Draft for Jones, they rolled the dice on the ultimate high ceiling, low floor prospect and right now, they’re getting the latter with very few flashes of the former. I always considered him a three-year project and the organization is giving him every chance to work through these struggles. But they need Jones to show some legitimate improvement down the stretch to at least prove to them that he can be a capable starting tackle in the league or they’ll be forced into finding contingency plan at tackle for next season.
Grade: D-
Round 2, Pick 32: CB Joey Porter Jr.
In the off-season, I penned a lengthy article about how well Joey Porter Jr. played as a rookie, being thrust into a number cornerback role and tasked with following the opposing team’s best weapon. In 2024, he hasn’t been asked to do that quite as much due to the drop off in the amount of man coverage that the team is deploying this season. But Porter’s ability to press and compress space on the boundary is a coveted skill set for a team that likes to live in the single high world. He has the length to combat the challenges that bigger wideouts present while also being fluid enough to keep pace with the shiftier receivers.
His urgency and feel in some coverage can still improve and while he’s always going to be more a man specialist, there has been improvement there recently. The biggest area for growth lies in the run defense department. Porter plays with a mild temperament when it comes to putting his face in the fan and is an inconsistent wrap-up tackler as well. But finding physical, press corners with this build, especially outside the first round, is very difficult. His ability to stay sticky in coverage outweighs the occasional yellow flag thrown his direction for his over-aggressiveness.
Grade: B+
Round 2, Pick 49: IDL Keeanu Benton
Keeanu Benton was a player that I was high on coming into 2024, despite him not registering a ton of box score production. He’s a good rushing interior defensive lineman with a signature pass move, the club-swim, which is usually what leads to his best reps. Benton’s hands are both heavy and quick with feet that never stop getting vertical in the pocket. Unfortunately, his advanced metrics remain impressive but even with six hits on the quarterback this season, he’s yet to record a sack. His best plays in run defense come with him knifing through gaps as a penetrator.
The downside of playing Benton as a nose tackle is that you can find reps each game where he’s detonated off the ball because his pad level isn’t consistent enough and he’s not extremely strong in his lower half. His game is honestly best suited to play as a three technique but Pittsburgh’s coaching staff seems to think otherwise. Ultimately, I think his best reps are too impressive for there not to be some positive regression from a numbers standpoint. Getting a useful player in the second right is nice but I’m of the opinion that there’s another level to his game that’s ready to unlock if deployed correctly.
Grade: B-
Round 3, Pick 93: TE Darnell Washington
The rumors swirling around Darnell Washington’s 2023 NFL Draft weekend tumble involved medical concerns but even with that in mind, it’s crazy that the team was able to trade back and draft him in the late third round. Coming out of Georgia, he was more of an idea than finished product. The highs as a blocker were tantalizing because of his truly rare combination of size and play strength. In 2024, that idea has become more of a realization with him showing improvement with his hand placement, allowing him to sustain blocks longer on contact. On film, he looks like he’s added additional mass and the offensive scheme has tasked him to regularly assist in pass protection and there’s been some impressive reps on an island in that regard.
In my eyes, Washington’s profile as a prospect screamed high floor, low ceiling because of his limitations as a receiving threat. But to Smith’s credit, they’ve figured out ways to maximize what he does well, running him into the flat and on crossing routes where he can punish defenders in space as a ball carrier. Because of where the college games is at in the modern era, it’s become more difficult to find competent in-line tight ends much less impact blockers such as Washington. Role players are important and every team could use a player like him but he’s even in more crucial in this offense given their preference to deploy heavy personnel groupings.
Grade: B
Round 4, Pick 132: EDGE Nick Herbig
Finding productive pass rushers outside of the first round is one of the more daunting team building tasks but the Steelers seem to have found another gem in Nick Herbig. He’s dominated in back to back preseasons and when Alex Highsmith went down with an injury earlier this year, he flashed immediately with a pair of high quality performances as a pass rusher. To no fault of his own, we just don’t have a very large sample size of what he could do in an expanded role and it’s difficult to see that changing barring further injuries to the talented duo ahead of him on the depth chart. Could he hold up well enough against the run to be an every down player? I think so but having a third edge rusher off the bench with this type of juice is a luxury few teams currently have.
Grade: B-
Round 7, Pick 241: CB Cory Trice
Prior to the 2023 NFL Draft, Cory Trice snuck into the top-100 of my big board rankings but there were some obvious red flags due to some injury concerns in college. Sadly, that black cloud has followed him to Pittsburgh as he missed his entire rookie season and hasn’t yet returned from his injured reserve stint that he started in September. Trice’s size and physicality were big bullet points on his scouting report but his inability to stay on the field has plagued him throughout his career. This is the type of dice roll that you appreciated given the upside but there’s a chance that he never catches a break long enough to reach his final form as a player.
Grade: Incomplete
Round 7, Pick 251: IOL Spencer Anderson
After flashing in the preseason, Spencer Anderson made the Steelers 53-man roster as a swing interior offensive lineman. Versatility was his calling card as a prospect, having played across the line but the Steelers seem to like him best at guard which is where he’s worked most recently. Due to injuries, Anderson got the chance to start for the first month of the season but he looked overmatched for the jump in competition. Still, we’re talking about one of the last players selected in the entire 2023 NFL Draft and the fact that he’s at least hung around this far is a testament to his journey. The flexibility to line up in multiple spots in a bonus but it’s still too early to tell if he’s a reliable backup or not.
Grade: D+
Read This Next
