The Pittsburgh Steelers have had a ton of great first-round draft picks throughout the 21st century. If we take a look back at the 2010 NFL Draft, the organization selected who would turn into the staple of the offensive line for the next decade in Maurkice Pouncey. Throughout his career, a dominant front was built around him and he was the leader of one of the NFL’s best lines for several years. The legendary center retired following the 2020 season and will always be remembered in Pittsburgh as one of the better linemen in the 21st century to date.
On Monday evening, Pouncey came on to the Steeler Nation weekly Twitter Spaces and discussed a multitude of topics and gave fans great insight into his career and his thoughts on the current team on Art Rooney Ave. When asked about what it was like to be a player on the current roster when April’s draft came every year, he said he would hear from Head Coach Mike Tomlin when another team drafted a defensive lineman to combat Pouncey.
“The craziest part is whenever I was a player, Coach Tomlin used to text me on draft days when a team would draft like a nose guard or something and be like ‘they did it for you’,” Pouncey said.
In terms of being involved with the Steelers draft process, he specifically remembers texting former General Manager, Kevin Colbert back in 2017 when the team selected a future Defensive Player of the Year in the first round.
“When I was always playing, I only ever texted Colbert maybe one time when they picked T.J. and I was like ‘man great pick.’ Even though maybe some of the people at Steeler Nation was like ‘I don’t know at the time.’ Man I seen how much hustle he had and I remember texting about him,” Pouncey recalled.
There was a certain cornerback who Pouncey would have loved to see the Steelers draft back in 2015 and he let Tomlin know that the organization should look into him.
“I texted Coach Tomlin about Marcus Peters one time when I was playing and said ‘yo coach, we need him.’ And he was like ‘man, Pounc, how do you know he’s going to be a great player, how much film did you watch on him?’ I said ‘coach, I ain’t gotta put on a lot of film to know Troy Polamalu’s going to be a great player’ and me and him just busted out laughing,” Pouncey said.
Now that the retired center no longer is on the team, he has tried to put himself in the front office in the past two drafts.
“Now sitting back as a retired player, you just sit back and you see the aspect of just trying to play General Manager in your head. So this year in my head, I said ‘get a quarterback, that’s what we need, maybe that draws more competition’,” Pouncey said.
As he sat back and watched the franchise select Kenny Pickett in the first round this past April and realized that the quarterback position needed to be looked at, he thought what the team had on the roster may have been enough.
“I thought Mason [Rudolph] could have played a good year, did a really good job. I played with Mason. I think he could command our huddle. I think he can win football games. The simple that that they went out and did something different just shows that I shouldn’t be a GM,” Pouncey admitted.
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