May 4, 2019 5 min read

The Steelers will have their rookie class together for the first time on a football field starting Friday at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, and it will be interesting to see how quickly this group can incorporate itself into the team’s plans.

GM Kevin Colbert repeatedly said in the leadup to and the aftermath of the draft the team ideally doesn’t want to have to have its rookies in the starting lineup. That might be true. At the same time, the Steelers didn’t trade their top two picks this year and their third next year to acquire linebacker Devin Bush and have him sit on the bench.

They felt strongly enough about Bush that they moved up to the 10th pick in the draft to acquire him.

That puts a lot of pressure on the 20-year-old, who won’t turn 21 until a week before the Steelers head to Saint Vincent College for training camp in late July.

By all accounts, he’s built to handle that kind of pressure. But we’ll find that out over the coming weeks and months.

Fact is, there probably hasn’t been this kind of buzz surrounding a Steelers’ first-round draft pick since the team selected Ben Roethlisberger 11th overall in 2004.

• Now that the draft is completed, we have a better idea of where things stand in terms of how teams will look.

In fact, the teams that take the field across the league for OTAs will be at their best right now. Once they get to training camp and start playing preseason games, injuries will happen.

The Raiders already had one last week, when running back Isaiah Crowell suffered a torn Achilles’ tendon.

The key to any offseason program is to get through it healthy. That’s why it’s not a big deal when veteran players skip some sessions.

The offseason workouts are more for the young players.

• Roethlisberger might want to get more time in this offseason than he did last, when he skipped most of the OTAs.

The Steelers’ receiving corps has a completely different look this season. Gone are Antonio Brown, Darrius Heyward-Bey and Justin Hunter.

In are Donte Moncrief and Diontae Johnson, while JuJu Smith-Schuster, James Washington, Ryan Switzer and Eli Rogers return.

Moncrief and Johnson figure to be big parts of the offense this year, but Washington could be the key.

The 2018 second-round draft pick wasn’t always on the same page with Roethlisberger last season. They didn’t work together at all during OTAs and that didn’t change a lot when training camp rolled around.

That has to change. And there’s no reason to think it won’t. The Steelers are counting on Washington to make a big jump this season.

• The four division winners are out of the Stanley Cup playoffs. So are the Penguins.

The remaining teams – outside of Boston and Colorado – are in areas where fans care mainly about their team.

The Carolina Hurricanes, for example, played their games this season in an arena that was only filled to 76 percent capacity. The Islanders were at 79 percent.

Columbus and St. Louis ranked 25th and 26th in arena capacity tickets sold.

It might be good for the long-term growth of the sport to have some of those teams that have been struggling to gain a foothold in their respective communities to play deeper into the playoffs, but you can bet TV execs aren’t happy.

Television ratings were up from a year ago for the first-round games. But the second-round matchups have struggled to top 1 million viewers – nationwide – in games not played by the Bruins.

• Most pitchers are taught to keep the ball low in the zone to hitters. But after watching Pirates’ rookie outfielder Bryan Reynolds rake balls six inches above the plate off the wall, here’s guessing he’ll stop seeing low balls.

Obviously, it’s a small sample size from Reynolds, but he’s hit for a good average at every stop in the minors.

Reynolds, along with valuable reliever Kyle Crick, were acquired in the trade with San Francisco for Andrew McCutchen in a deal that looks better and better with each game Reynolds plays in the majors.

• Many fans are now down on the Pirates’ deal that sent Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows to the Tampa Bay Rays for pitcher Chris Archer.

But many of them were the same people who didn’t think Glasnow would ever amount to anything more than a Class AAAA pitcher.

What’s a Class AAAA pitcher? One who tears up Class AAA but can’t get it done at the major league level.

In six starts this season, Glasnow is 5-0 with a 1.75 ERA. Six starts do not a career make, but perhaps Glasnow has worked out the control issues that seemed to plague him when he was with the Pirates.

• Think the Steelers are serious about getting better on special teams this offseason? Of the 11 undrafted rookies they signed, three are specialists (kicker, punter or long-snapper).

Per FootballOutsiders.com, the Steelers’ special teams ranked 27th in the league in 2018 per that site’s metrics.

This, after finishing ninth overall in the same rankings in 2017.

Placekicker Chris Boswell’s sub-par season was a big reason for that, but so were the Steelers leading the league in special team penalties. Getting better in that phase of the game is a priority.

Dale Lolley covers the Steelers for DKPittsburghSports.com and writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.