The Pittsburgh Steelers don’t make trades in the NFL Draft often, but this one was worth it, as they climb the board to grab linebacker Devin Bush.
The Steelers defense has quite a few question marks. However, picking Devin Bush just answered quite a few of them as they find their replacement for Ryan Shazier who is struggling to come back, if he is able to at all. That was a big position of need for the Steelers, especially one that can diagnose plays as quickly as Bush has the ability to do in both run and pass coverage.
Bush is a sideline-to-sideline linebacker that covers well and could be an instant impact defender for the Steelers coming into the 2019 season. While Bush fits into this defense well, despite worries about his reaction times and his tendency to get latched onto blocks, I am not sure that this was what they should have been using this pick for. They have other needs that were more pressing and to go for a linebacker this early may have been a bit premature.
I may be alone in that thinking though, as this team did need help on the defensive side of the ball and they are getting it in linebacker Devin Bush out of Michigan.
Grade: B-
I give this pick a B-, just because I think that going for a linebacker was premature when this team needed a quarterback as well some offensive linemen or maybe even a corner that was available to them at this point in the draft. The terms of the trade were steep too, Pittsburgh traded the 20th and 52nd overall pick this year, in addition to a 2020 third-rounder to move up and take Bush.