Risky pick McFarland must be better than Rainey, Archer
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. The Steelers used their third pick in the draft to take an explosive, home run-hitting running back who gives them something different than they already have.
This year, it was Anthony McFarland Jr. of Maryland. In 2014, it was Dri Archer. In 2012, it was Chris Rainey, though he was the fifth player they drafted that year.
Both players brought the same play-making abilities as
McFarland, whose penchant for using his speed to break long runs at Maryland was his signature. The Steelers hope he works out better than the other two.
“He gives us a little changeup different from the guys we have,” general manager Kevin Colbert said shortly after drafting McFarland with the first of their two fourth-round selections.
Colbert used the same word shortly after drafting Archer, a running back/return specialist from Kent State, in the third round six years ago.
“We’ll have a guy at our disposal offensively that can give you a nice changeup,” he said at the time.
The concept behind drafting McFarland is not at issue here. The Steelers are looking for playmakers to help an offense that struggled to score points last season. And while the Steelers didn’t need a fourth running back to go with James Conner, Benny Snell and Jaylen Samuels, they embraced the idea of having a back capable of making field-flipping plays. After all, they had only one run of 40 yards or longer last season, and that was by Trey Edmunds.
So, conceptually, having a player who had runs of 52, 75 and 81 yards in one game against Ohio State on your roster isn’t the most outrageous idea. In fact, it makes a boatload of sense.
“He has really good vision, one-step cut quickness and very good finish speed,” Colbert said, describing McFarland. “He had a lot of big runs just finding that crease or finding a bounce to the outside where he can finish.”
The Steelers thought much the same thing of Archer, who was the fastest player in the 2014 draft (4.26 in the 40). They thought he could be a playmaker, a change-of-pace back from what they already had, which was a backfield that included Le’Veon Bell and LeGarrette Blount. It all sounded so ideal.
The problem was, every time Archer entered the game, it was as if a hockey goal light went off. It was as if they were alerting the defense some type of play involving the 5-foot-8, 173pound running back was likely to take place.
Archer appeared for 50 snaps that season, rushing 10 times for 40 yards and catching seven passes for 23 yards. His longest gain of any kind was 15 yards. This is not an indictment of Archer, who lasted only one season with the Steelers, as much as it is the belief that it will be any different with McFarland.
Drafting Rainey in 2012 made a little more sense because Rashard Mendenhall was coming off an ACL injury suffered in the last game of the 2011 season and the backups were Jonathan Dwyer and Isaac Redman, not exactly game-breakers. Plus, Rainey, a speedster at Florida, was a fifth-round choice.
Rainey played more snaps (150) than Archer in his one and only season with the Steelers — he was released after an arrest for dating violence in the offseason — but the results were much the same. He played in all 16 games, carried 26 times for 102 yards and had 14 receptions for 60 yards. His longest gain was 19 yards.
Can it be any different with McFarland?
With Conner and Snell, even Samuels, McFarland isn’t going to appear for more than two or three plays a game. When he does, they might as well put the play up on the video board for the opposing defense to see. The only thing missing will be the goal light.
Getting your guy …
The level of angst at the Steelers not taking Ohio State running back J.K. Dobbins with their top pick in the draft is growing by the day, as if they passed on drafting Dan Marino again. The reason they didn’t is simple.
Colbert really liked wide receiver Chase Claypool and had him targeted all along, more so than some of the wide receivers drafted before him. And 10 wide receivers were selected ahead of Claypool, or 20.8% of the draft haul to that point.
To show how rare that is, consider that 10 wide receivers had been selected by the end of the second round only once in the previous 10 years
— in 2014, and that was the 56th overall selection.
Last year, the 10th wide receiver didn’t come off the board until the third round, when, coincidentally, the Steelers selected Diontae Johnson with the 66th overall pick. In eight of the nine previous drafts, 10 wide receivers never had been selected at a point earlier than the Steelers selected Johnson. In 2016, 10 receivers lasted until the 107th overall pick in the fourth round. The 2014 draft was the lone exception.
But even that year couldn’t match what happened last week when 10 wide receivers were already gone by the time the Steelers had the 49th pick in the draft. And, yet, the player Colbert wanted was still there. All 6 feet 4, 238 pounds of him.
It might not have mattered if only five receivers were drafted ahead of Claypool. The Steelers had him in their range-finder from as far away as their living rooms. They were so comfortably convinced with Claypool that Colbert and coach Mike Tomlin never interviewed him again after talking to him at the Senior Bowl.
That’s why Colbert said after the Steelers selected him: “We were excited that that player was available to us. Not that position, that Chase Claypool, the player, was available to us.”
There was no doubt the Steelers were targeting a wide receiver with their top pick to put some juice back into their offense. And, as long as Claypool was still available, that wasn’t going to change. Even with Dobbins on the board.