Times Are Changing; Today Is The Earliest I've Ever Looked Up A Mock Draft
Bob Dylan once wrote "times they are a changing", and boy are they ever for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The last 17 years have been steadily very good with a few blips of mediocre and a handful of times of greatness - but even in the "mediocre" times they'd still drag you along to Week 17 with different playoff scenario tie breakers that could get them into the tourney. It doesn't have that feel this year. I tweeted it out a couple days ago but the last three home games have all three basically been blowout losses with two of those three coming against the Browns and the Bengals.
Times are most definitely changing.
So I found myself on Tuesday morning, fresh off of Week 3 of professional football action barely even seen the first Autumn leave fall, opening up google search and typing in those four phrases we all search but some (the lucky ones) much, much later than the rest of us - "2022 NFL Mock Draft".
Once I got beyond the depressing fact that we still have 14 games left to play in the season, it was actually exciting. With careers ending and great changes happening in the NFL comes new hope, too. Something us Steelers fans haven't gotten to, or better off haven't had to, since five years before the release of the first iPhone. And wouldn't you know it, the first of I assume plenty of NFL mock drafts to come through the next six months has the Steelers picking their "Big Ben replacement".
CBS Sports: Round 1, Pick 10 - QB Matt Corral, Ole Miss
"Corral has the tools to be a Lamar Jackson/Trey Lance/Josh Allen-type quarterback but he's still incredibly raw. The time is now in Pittsburgh, however, where we can't envision a situation where Big Ben returns."
Dude has been absolutely ripping it so far in 2021. 68.8% completion percentage. Nine TDs to 0 picks. 2 rushing TDs. From Daniel Jeremiah, the scouting expert I trust by far the most:
Yeah, yeah, I know. Zach Wilson hasn't been good to start off his career, but looking at the bright side maybe Corral is just the SEC version of Wilson so automatically makes him better? I don't know. He plays at Bama this weekend so that should be the test of all tests. If he pulls a Johnny Football then there's no denying he'll shoot up boards already.
But, the likely thing that'll happen is the Steelers won't want to reach for a QB (which is fine and fair), draft a stud anchor offensive lineman (also more than fine and fair), and stick Rudolph back there in a year of transition to wait for a 2023 QB.
After breaking all this down I went from excitement and refreshing to depressed that we're heading into Week four and the reality of the situation is I'm already looking into this.