Thanks Kent for doing this! I wanted to see how this Steelers drafted relative to RAS and how it’s changed over the years. Starting at receiver – Bernard seems different from the guys they traditionally have been drafting – accurate?
Wide receiver is tricky – it’s very style-based. They’ve gone after guys like Martavis Bryant and George Pickens in the past who had very specialized roles in the offense. I don’t get that with Bernard – he scored well on speed, agility and decent explosiveness. You can do a lot more with that. When you draft a guy like Cooper Kupp or Amon St. Brown you get very specialized players. Bernard looks like a guy that offers much more versatility.
You see that in the draft overall – guys they’ve taken recently like Dunker, Iheanachor, Everett – there are no limitations to what these players can do – they don’t come with super-specialized scores. They are all guys who are very versatile athletically.
So Bernard seems to hit home athletically with what they are asking for – versatility at that spot?
He does. Most teams go for super-athletic receivers early. The Steelers have been a bit different there. James Washington was an exception – he wasn’t a great tester. Bryant and Pickens tested great in some areas but their overall RAS scores showed them as less versatile receivers, where Bernard is more dynamic in his scores.
They have Roman Wilson as well – Bernard seems more similar to him ..?
Wilson had an injury before his tests. He still had very good shuttle and cone drills but not as good as expected. He is more like Bernard in terms of RAS but he hasn’t panned out.
People don’t realize that the fail rate is astronomically high in the NFL. It’s not 50-50. It’s 25-50% in the first round alone then drops astronomically from there. Injuries, will to play, character issues…. those all can torpedo players.
Are there RAS scores that seem to correlate most to those misses?
Just looking at testing scores is a disservice. Guys have to perform on the field. Jeff Caldwell broke the RAS score this year – higher than Calvin Johnson. But he went undrafted, How did that happen? You just have to look at the tape to see why. Athleticism isn’t enough.
For offensive linemen, a 4.4 shuttle is the magic number. Linemen with that number start. Gennings Dunker was close – not a 4.4 but he had a really good score.
A lot of it depends on what they are being asked to do too. D.K. Metcalf scored poorly in his agility testing and that worried some teams coming out. But he’s not being asked to run routes often that require that level of agility – so it depends on how you utilize their strengths. That’s not what he’s being asked to do in his role, so the agility score mattered less.
You look at Anquan Boldin – he didn’t move well or change direction well. But he won differently. When the ball was in the air it was his – he was so physical and strong. Those aren’t things they even really test.
The Steelers have struggled drafting in the secondary – any thoughts as to why looking at RAS?
They have. Artie Buns tested just “ok”. He didn’t really pan out. They went the complete other way and drafted a safety round one in Edmunds who had tons of athleticism but didn’t have the tape. They just have struggled to get the right balance of tape and testing.
They excel at linebacker and defensive line though…
They are good at finding those guys. Agility skills for linebackers are overblown. As middle-of-the-field guys, their big athletic needs are speed and explosion. Those are more important than agility and they get that. If a linebacker can diagnose quickly, it’s about reacting and exploding quickly to the ball, not jumping over guys.
It’s interesting. I remember when the Steelers drafted Jarvis Jones – he tested really poorly and he bombed. They went away from drafting athletic guys at linebacker and you can see how that did.
On the defensive line, they run those big three-man fronts and find guys who work. Rubio is interesting – he hits several of those desireable nosetackle metrics. Those guys aren’t usually that athletic – they need to move in one direction fast. Rubio had good broad and cone scores which show he can go from stationary to fast quickly – that’s what a nosetackle needs to to every play.
They’ve really changed their offensive line approach lately right?
It’s been a really stark change yes. From 2005 to 2020 the average offensive lineman RAS score for the Steelers was 4.53. From 2010 to 2020 it was even lower – 4.24. But from 2021 to 2026 it’s 9.31. That’s a crazy change. They moved from power run, man schemes where you didn’t need super-athletic guys to more zone blocking schemes – and every guy they drafted has fit that new look.
The Eagles have taken that approach – drafting super-athletic linemen -and it’s worked well for them, so it makes sense with the new staff and Eagles connections that the Steelers would emulate that.
Laslty, I’m curious about your thoughts on Eli Heidenrich and Kaden Wetjen and what their RAS scores tell you..
Heidenrich had a really terrific cone drill – at the 99% level. That’s a rare trait. When you’re that quick you can excel at a lot of breaking, dynamic and option routes if you are quick enough to process things quickly. If you can’t process quickly then you become predictable and zone schemes can detract from what you do. There’s a lot of that decision-making in Navy’s offense so I think the Steelers probably saw that and felt good about him in that way. As a lot receiver who can move around a lot he can be very dangerous – but it’s a specialized role.
Wetjen – there was a lot of good in his testing but nothing great. He had no weaknesses either – if you don’t have one outstanding strength it’s good to have no weaknesses. But he doesn’t show top level agility or explosiveness or speed in his testing so it will be interesting to see where he can find a role outside of special teams. And he doesn’t have great top-end speed so we’ll see how that goes