With less than a month until the NFL Draft, teams have begun to host players at their facilities for pre-draft visits. Teams use these pre-draft visits on players that are recovering from injury to monitor the player’s recovery, players with character concerns or players that teams are unsure of how to rank on their draft boards, either because of lack of playing time or the system in which they played during college (such as a 4-3 DE that is potentially adjusting to a 3-4 OLB). Over the last four years, only one of the Steelers first round picks (Maurkice Pouncey) was brought in for a pre-draft visit. However, quite a few of their later round picks were brought in for visits. To give a sense of the caliber of the prospects, I included rankings from four of my favorite draft sites: Draft Breakdown, Optimum Scouting, ScarDraft, and Mocking The Draft.
Mauti is recovering from yet another knee injury that he suffered during his senior season at Penn State. There is no questioning Mauti’s leadership abilities – his injury prompted Penn State to wear “42” decals on their helmets for their final game. Mauti has great instincts and always seems to be around the ball, but his knee injury and inability to run in the offseason leaves some questions if he will be capable of starting the season or ever returning to game speed. For a depth-challenged team like the Steelers, Mauti might not be worth the risk if he will be unable to see the field in his rookie year. However, it makes sense for the Steelers to bring him in and have their doctors check him out to see how his recovering is coming along.
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