Analyzing the Steelers' Best Trade Options with the 22nd Pick in the NFL Draft

As the NFL marches toward the 2015 NFL draft, every team is trying to determine which prospects can best help them. The Pittsburgh Steelers are sitting with the No. 22 pick in the first round, but that situation is fluid.

The most likely scenario for the Steelers is to sit tight and select the top player on their board when they go on the clock. Pittsburgh’s primary needs reside on the defensive side of the football.

For this exercise, let’s look at five potential draft-day trade scenarios, some centering on the pick and some on the player. Pittsburgh's needs are broad enough that there are plenty of players of a similar grade in this draft that can be had all over the round.

The point values for these potential trades come from a trade value chart that was invented in 1991 by former head coach Jimmy Johnson, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com.

The Big Trade Up

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If the Steelers want to make a splash, this is the draft to do it. The top need for the Steelers at this point is outside linebacker. Fortunately, this first-round crop of edge-players is top-heavy. There could be four of these hybrid players selected in the first 10 picks.

Those four players are Nebraska’s Randy Gregory, Missouri’s Shane Ray, Florida’s Dante Fowler Jr. and Kentucky’s Alvin Dupree. These are the top 3-4 outside linebacker prospects in this draft. The gap between them and the next tier is significant.

The target pick here is No. 11 and belongs to the Minnesota Vikings. If the Vikings are on the clock, and one or more of the four are still on the board, this is where Pittsburgh makes a move. The Atlanta Falcons are in desperate need of an upgrade to their pass rush as well.

What would a move like this cost? Well, if we use the chart mentioned above, the value of the No. 11 pick is 1,250, and the value of the No. 22 pick is 780. This means the Steelers would need to seriously sweeten the deal. According to the chart, it would take a second- and third-round pick in addition to the first to put themselves in that spot.

Those picks wouldn’t have to come from the 2015 draft necessarily, but the Vikings could parley that move into some nice picks. This would be a bigger trade than the one that brought the Steelers safety Troy Polamalu back in 2003 when they moved up from the No. 27 pick to the No. 13 selection.

Go Up and Get Danny Shelton

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If the Steelers opt for going a different direction in the first round, a proper nose tackle could their objective. Pittsburgh has been trying to replace former star Casey Hampton for several seasons to no avail. If there is an early run on outside linebackers, that would put a massive Washington defensive tackle, Danny Shelton, squarely on the Steelers' radar.

Depending how the first round plays out, there’s a real chance that Shelton slides into the late teens. The spot to target here is pick No. 18, which is the property of the Kansas City Chiefs. Kansas City already has an elite nose tackle in Dontari Poe, so Shelton won’t be an option for them. However, he could be an option for the Cleveland Browns with the next pick.

The Chiefs are in need of a wide receiver and could find a player like Auburn’s Sammie Coates later in the round. The cost of this move? Going back to the chart, the difference between the two picks is only 95 points. That amounts to a third-round pick and is worth the move.

Hopping over the Cincinnati Bengals

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Every team wants to get one over on a division rival. The Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals share a need for an edge-rusher. That means when that second group of outside linebackers start coming off the board, Cincinnati could be targeting one just ahead of the Steelers.

If a player like Virginia’s Eli Harold is on the board with the Philadelphia Eagles on the clock for the 20th pick, the Steelers should pick up the phone and try to work a deal. It would help the Eagles because they would get an extra fourth-round pick in the deal and still likely select the defensive back they would be targeting.

On the Steelers side, Harold might not be on the same level as the top edge-rusher, but he’s big enough and explosive enough to get on the field early and contribute. If giving up a fourth-rounder is the cost to assure that the Steelers get one of the last great edge-players in the round, then it’s worth it.

Moving Back to Take a Cornerback

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If the Steelers chose to sit tight with their original pick, there will be several cornerbacks on the board who could be targets. Michigan State’s Trae Waynes and Washington’s Marcus Peters are the only two cornerbacks projected to go in the top half of the first round, so the rest are fair game.

Which team would want to trade up? In this scenario, it would be a team looking for a running back. There are some great ones in this draft, namely Georgia’s Todd Gurley and Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon. Franchises are hesitant to pull the trigger on a first-round running back.

But there could be a scramble at the end of the round to get these two guys, and the Steelers could find themselves taking calls from teams like the Indianapolis Colts or the Dallas Cowboys, who might be buying.

The move itself would probably only yield an extra fourth-round pick, but Pittsburgh would still be able to get a cornerback like Quenten Rollins from Miami (Ohio) or P.J. Williams from Florida State and have their new starting cornerback.

The Big Trade Back

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If Pittsburgh is thinking about making significant moves, it should consider multiple trades back, even into the beginning of the second round. The reason being the difference in talent between the players that will be available to the Steelers at No. 22 is not so different from the ones who will be available 25 picks later, especially at cornerback.

Amassing multiple middle-round picks would give the Steelers the leverage to move around in the top 100 and get two or three good players. If the Steelers were to do this, there would be one downside. While the talent at cornerback is deep and consistent well into the late second round, the talent at outside linebacker is not.

The decision to do this would depend greatly on who was on the board when the Steelers go on the clock. There are about nine players at outside linebacker who could come in and play early. We’ve discussed several of them already, but the list also includes Utah’s Nate Orchard, Washington’s Shaq Thompson, Clemson’s Vic Beasley and UCLA’s Owamagbe Odighizuwa.

How many moves the Steelers make would be dependent on being able to get one of those nine. That would at least help assure that the pass rush would be improved in 2015. The miscalculation here would be to be too aggressive trading back and being forced to address outside linebacker beyond one of those players.