As NFL teams prepare for the 2024 NFL Draft, there is one big event prior to the draft which will draw a massive amount of attention across the league. That would be none other than free agency. When the new league year begins on March 13th, with the “illegal tampering period” starting on March 11th, teams will start to try and target veteran players who can come in and help right now.

But that never changes the plans of the scouting department. The department which is in charge of putting together the team’s draft big board, ranking players overall as well as by position.

Websites like this one do the very same thing, but it’s important to take a look at the process the Steelers take as they get their big boards together before the draft process begins at the end of April. While attending the Senior Bowl the Steelers scouting department spoke with the team’s official website to outline just how that process goes for the team.

“This time of year, we start to break it down by positions. Each scout will take a group and kind of be an expert as we go through these all-star games,” Dan Colbert said. “We like to get waves of reports into the system. The area scouts will still be the experts on the players they scouted throughout the fall, but it’s all about checks and balances and getting different parts into the system at different times. We’ll have scouts doing positions and tanking the guys they saw during the season.

“That just kind of helps us stack the board. It helps with the tiebreakers. If you’re an area scout, you don’t necessarily see the whole country, but if you do it by position, you can see the top 20 linebackers, for example. You’re not really looking at the guys you scouted any longer, you’re looking at a position. It’s a new report into the system that tells us if a guy is elevating. We don’t overreact to that stuff, but it’s a check.”

While the college football season was the first building block for the scouting department, the evaluation process continues with all-star games like the East-West Shrine Bowl and the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama.

“It’s still all the start of the process. This is one extra little tool to all of it,” Mark Sadowski said. “Obviously, the meat of it is what they did during the season. When we do get our coaches involved, they will watch all of the game tape, as well. This is another cherry on the top, so to speak. It’s a reward for many of these players.

“It helps us if it’s a smaller school guy, to come here and compete against the ‘big boys.’ The guys from the non-Power 5s can come and make a name. The great thing about all of that is how hands on Coach Tomlin is. He’s really amazing. How he knows about all of these college guys when he’s so locked in on our team during the year, he comes in ready to roll. He’s boots on the ground, ‘Tell me about this guy or talk to me about that guy.’ That all trickles down through his staff. We really don’t give our coaches guys that don’t fit that vision that comes through Coach and Omar.”

The process will continue for the scouting department in just over a week when the NFL Draft descends on Indianapolis for the NFL Scouting Combine. For over a week Lucas Oil Field will be the home of meetings, measurements, and drills to help athletes differentiate themselves from their peers. For some teams the combine just validates what they’ve otherwise seen on tape and at all-start games. For others, it could mean the difference between being a Day 1 pick, and a Day 2 pick.

The Steelers are getting their ducks in a row with the NFL Draft, and it should be an exciting adventure as the process continues to unravel throughout the month of March with the Combine and Pro Days leading up to the draft. Stay tuned to SCN for the latest on the Steelers this offseason.