The NFL draft is a lot like the White Elephant game that office parties and some families do at Christmas to pick presents. You’ve got your eye on the perfect gift, it looks like you are in line to grab it, and then that jerk Steve sweeps in and steals it. No one even likes Steve. How did he get invited in the first place?

If you are like me and are a daily listener of the SCN family of podcasts, you are well versed by now in all of the needs that the Steelers have going into the draft, and what those potential targets could be in the first three rounds. I am not as aware on what the “Steve’s” needs are, and by that I mean the Ravens, Bengals, and Browns. You know, the teams that make us wonder who invited them to the party and ruined it for everybody else.

There’s nothing worse than having a player that you fell in love with during the lead up to the draft and then seeing them get snatched up by a rival organization. We were able to enjoy a bit of that on the good side last year with the trade up to get Broderick Jones before the Jets could take him. While that is nice, the Patriots probably enjoyed it more that we did. When it’s in the division, that can be the sweetest dessert, or the most bitter of poison, depending on who is serving up the dish.

I did a quick and dirty search on the draft needs of the other, less important AFC North teams and took a consensus of the first ten draft predictions for rounds 1-3. If I die soon…someone please clear that off my browser history before my family sees it. Anyway, here’s what I found:

Ravens                Bengals               Browns (no 1st round pick this year)
OT, WR, IOL         DL, IOL, TE             WR, DL
OT, CB, WR          DL, IOL, OT            IOL, WR
OT, CB, WR          OT, WR, DL            OT, EDGE
OT, WR, CB          DL, OT, RB             OT, LB
WR, OT, CB          OT, DL, DL              WR, OT
WR, EDGE, CB    CB, OT, DL              DL, LB
EDGE, OT, WR     LB, OT, RB              DL, WR
OT, DL, CB           TE, IOL, EDGE        DL, WR
CB, LB, OT           OT, DL, WR             TE, IOL
WR, CB, RB          DL, WR, CB            OT, RB

To reference the old Bill Parcels quote, it looks like everyone’s grocery list has a lot of the same ingredients. OT, CB, WR, and DL show up over and over. When I looked at the names all these draft predictions have slotted in, that list was just as familiar. Zach Frazier, Jackson Powers-Johnson, Roman Wilson, Taliese Fuaga, Xavier Worthy, Tyler Guyton, Bryan Thomas Jr, and Troy Fautanu kept repeating, and all of those names show up with Steelers draft wants and needs.

I can’t say how accurate these draft predictions are, and I’m taking them at face value. To be honest, I’m doing good to keep up with the Steelers draft targets, and once we start talking past round three, I start staring at the ground and mumbling answers. The only thing I am confident about regarding the other ACF North teams is that Mel Kiper will declare the Ravens deserve an A+++ for their draft and declare them the offseason champs, for all that is worth.

Omar Khan and the Steelers organization as a whole have earned my confidence that they are doing everything possible to build this team and break the cycle of barely breaking .500 and one and done playoff appearances. I’m sure they know exactly what that jerk “Steve” has his eyes on and have a plan to counter it. The Steelers might have to be more aggressive with their moves to get exactly who they want, but the days of just waiting for our turn hoping our guy falls to us appears to be over. Whether it works or not remains to be seen, but it will be wild to watch come draft day. I can’t wait.