A topic I wanted to deep dive on this week was the NFL Draft: Positional Breakdown of Round 1. Last week I looked at what it costs to trade up for a QB. You can check that out here.

The reason this topic is interesting is I’m seeing in real time how big boards and mock drafts are fluctuating based on the position of the player. Usually you hear this anecdotally. Things like, “tackles and QBs go early, but interior offensive linemen always slip”. It’s pretty easy to see that true. But the interesting part is WHEN that happens.

Big boards across the internet looked different even at the time of my first Pittsburgh Steelers Mock Draft (which can be found here) The biggest example were two offensive linemen.

Kenyon Green on Texas A&M is the top interior lineman in the draft to most experts. On The Draft Network he was consistently going in the top 10 in mock drafts early on in the process. And Offensive Tackle Trevor Penning of Northern Iowa was available in late Round 1 – early Round 2 consistently. Penning is the top tackle of tier 2. From a talent value standpoint this made sense.

Now that we are in the end of February and combine is close the positional value is starting to kick in. The two players have essentially swapped in perceived value with no changes to their situations. This change motivated me in taking a closer look at where certain positions go in the draft. With that said, let’s take a look at the NFL Draft: Positional Breakdown of Round 1.

The Selections

Here are the last five first rounds, and the positions picked at each position.

Here is the breakdown of each position of the first round, top five, top ten, and top 16 selections of each of those drafts.

Takeaways

Let’s take a look at some of what we can see here. First, we can see there is a 50/50 split between offensive and defensive selections. However, that split skews more towards the offense as you get closer to the top of the draft. Next, quarterbacks are most likely to be taken higher in the draft. So if there’s one worth taking in the first round, it’s better to have a top five pick to try and get the one you want.

Speaking for the defense we can safely say the most important position to get early is a pass rusher. Not many players were classified as “outside linebackers”, but those that were could probably be called “defensive ends”.

For the most part the old-school Bill Parcells school of drafting still holds true. “You either want to draft a QB, someone to protect your QB, or rush the QB in the first round”. But for “protecting” the quarterback we can see that still mostly means the offensive tackle.

The other top position taken early in the draft is cornerback. With the increase in offenses pushing the ball downfield, having strong cover corners is becoming even more important.

What This Means For The Steelers

The Pittsburgh Steelers currently have the 20th pick in the first round. Thinking about some of their positional needs and matching those to this breakdown, they are most likely to be able to get an interior offensive lineman, off-ball linebacker, or cornerback. Those positions within the first round are more often selected in the back half of the round. Depending on what happens with JuJu Smith-Schuster and Stephon Tuitt this spring, wide receiver or an interior defensive lineman could even be on the board for the same reason. Quarterback and offensive tackle however are typically taken earlier. So there might not be a round one talent still on the board when Pittsburgh is on the clock.

We as fans will have a better sense of who could be on the board for Pittsburgh in the first round during the Pro Day circuit. The team over at Steelers Depot have tracked very well over the years that just about every first round pick the Steelers select have either Mike Tomlin or Kevin Colbert in attendance at their Pro Day. At that time, we’ll have a better idea if the Steelers 20th pick would net them their preferred player(s) based on this NFL Draft: Positional Breakdown of Round 1.

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