The NFL Draft will take place outside of Acrisure Stadium on April 23-25. In advance of the event, we will be looking back at each of the 25 Steelers drafts in the history of the Heinz Field/Acrisure Stadium era.

Every day this week, we will examine all of those draft classes and pick the best player from each batch of selections. We’ll also give you the Steelers’ 25 best draft picks since the stadium opened.

For Wednesday’s entry, we start with the 2011 draft class after the Super Bowl XLV loss and take you through the 2015 group.

2011: Cameron Heyward | Round 1, Pick 31 (DL, Ohio State)

Heyward is an obvious choice here — just as he was when he was selected after the Super Bowl appearance to end the 2010 season.

At defensive end, Aaron Smith was 34 and had just suffered two injury-plagued seasons. Brett Keisel was about to turn 33. Ziggy Hood wasn’t on a fast track. With his Pittsburgh connections and a high pedigree of performance at Ohio State, Heyward seemed like the perfect fit that he eventually turned out to be.

Despite being a reserve player until his third year, Heyward blossomed by 2014. After making his first Pro Bowl in 2017, he earned that designation and/or All-Pro eight of the next nine years.

Marcus Gilbert was the only other player of note from this class. He started 13 games at offensive tackle as a rookie and (when healthy) 87 of them over his seven-year Pittsburgh career.

Cortez Allen always seemed to have tools and potential — to the extent that the team gave him a five-year, $24.6 million contract extension that included a $9.75 million guaranteed and a signing bonus of $6.75 million prior to the 2014 season. But that year, he was eventually benched for Brice McCain. He was placed on injured reserve after one game in 2015 and released in the spring of 2016.

• Marcus Gilbert | Round 2, Pick 63 (OT, Florida)

• Curtis Brown | Round 3, Pick 95 (DB, Texas)

• Cortez Allen | Round 4, Pick 128 (CB, The Citadel)

• Chris Carter | Round 5, Pick 162 (OLB, Fresno State)

• Keith Williams | Round 6, Pick 196 (OG, Nebraska)

• Baron Batch | Round 7, Pick 232 (RB, Texas Tech)

2012: David DeCastro | Round 1, Pick 24 (OG, Stanford)

Following Heyward and Maurkice Pouncey (2010), this was the third straight gold-star first-round selection by Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin.

Although, things didn’t start off that way.

DeCastro suffered a knee injury during the third preseason game when Gilbert fell on his leg while in pass protection for Ben Roethlisberger in the end zone at Buffalo. He didn’t debut until there were only four games left in the 2012 season. In Game 1 of 2012, DeCastro fanned on a block and took out Pouncey, tearing Pouncey’s ACL and ending his season. DeCastro also suffered an ankle injury late that season.

However, DeCastro only missed six games the remainder of his seven-year career, which featured six Pro Bowls and two first-team All-Pro nominations.

Aside from seventh-round pick Kelvin Beachum, the rest of this class was a disaster. He played 44 games (39 starts) as a Steeler and has 14 NFL seasons under his belt.

Meanwhile, Mike Adams could never get over lingering back issues and was stabbed during a robbery attempt on the South Side. Sean Spence suffered a terrible knee injury during his first preseason and didn’t play until 2014. Alameda Ta’amu and Chris Rainey both ran into legal trouble and made minimal contributions as Steelers.

• Mike Adams | Round 2, Pick 56 (OT, Ohio State)

• Sean Spence | Round 3, Pick 86 (ILB, Miami, FL)

• Alameda Ta’amu | Round 4, Pick 109 (DT, Washington)

• Chris Rainey | Round 5, Pick 159 (RB, Florida)

• Toney Clemons | Round 7, Pick 231 (WR, Colorado)

• David Paulson | Round 7, Pick 240 (TE, Oregon)

• Terrence Frederick | Round 7, Pick 246 (DB, Texas A&M)

• Kelvin Beachum | Round 7, Pick 248 (OT, SMU)

2013: Le’Veon Bell | Round 2, Pick 48 (RB, Michigan State)

The run of first-round success came to an abrupt halt in 2013 with the Jarvis Jones pick. But the Steelers made up for it in Round 2 with Le’Veon Bell.

In need of a running back, the Steelers ended up making the right call by drafting Bell at pick No. 48, when only one other RB (Giovani Bernard) had been selected.

Featured Local Businesses

More local businesses

Prior to his contract meltdown that brought his Steelers’ career to an end after five seasons, Bell accumulated 42 total touchdowns, 5,336 rushing yards and 2,660 receiving yards.

Vince Williams gave the franchise eight years of great value as a sixth-round pick at inside linebacker. Landry Jones won three of his five starts while backing up Roethlisberger. Markus Wheaton averaged 17 yards per catch and totaled five touchdowns during a 746-yard season in 2015 but wasn’t retained after a shoulder injury in 2016.

The rest of the class yielded nothing of note.

• Jarvis Jones | Round 1, Pick 17 (LB, Georgia)

• Markus Wheaton | Round 3, Pick 79 (WR, Oregon State)

• Shamarko Thomas | Round 4, Pick 111 (DB, Syracuse)

• Landry Jones | Round 4, Pick 115 (QB, Oklahoma)

• Terry Hawthorne | Round 5, Pick 150 (DB, Illinois)

• Justin Brown | Round 6, Pick 186 (WR, UAB)

• Vince Williams | Round 6, Pick 206 (LB, Florida State)

• Nick Williams | Round 7, Pick 223 (DT, Samford)

2014: Stephon Tuitt | Round 2, Pick 46 (DE, Notre Dame)

This was an entire draft class of “what could have been,” so we’ll go with Tuitt because he put up the most tangible numbers for the longest period of time.

Tuitt frequently dealt with back, pec, bicep and knee injuries. He also missed the entire 2021 season after coping with the death of his brother and an ongoing knee problem. He retired on June 1, 2022, after just seven seasons.

When he was healthy, Tuitt was a force, especially during an 11-sack campaign in 2020. But that wasn’t often enough.

The same could be said about first-round pick Ryan Shazier. The Ohio State linebacker was the perfect fit for what the Steelers wanted at the position. Unfortunately, he missed 11 games over his first two seasons due to injuries.

Shazier was finally staying healthy and figuring out the position, making Pro Bowl rosters in 2016-17, only to have his career ended by a spinal injury in Cincinnati in Game 13 of the 2017 campaign. The franchise has still never sufficiently replaced him.

Then there was receiver Martavis Bryant, who flashed ungodly skills but got himself suspended and benched multiple times during his tumultuous four years in Pittsburgh.

All the other picks in the class were forgettable, even though Dan McCullers managed to hang around for six years while starting just three games.

• Ryan Shazier | Round 1, Pick 15 (ILB, Ohio State)

• Dri Archer | Round 3, Pick 97 (WR, Kent State)

• Martavis Bryant | Round 4, Pick 118 (WR, Clemson)

• Shaquille Richardson | Round 5, Pick 157 (DB, Arizona)

• Wesley Johnson | Round 5, Pick 173 (OL, Vanderbilt)

• Jordan Zumwalt | Round 6, Pick 192 (LB, UCLA)

• Daniel McCullers | Round 6, Pick 215 (DT, Tennessee)

• Rob Blanchflower | Round 7, Pick 230 (TE, Massachusetts)

2015: Bud Dupree | Round 1, Pick 22 (OLB, Kentucky)

For the first two years of his career, it looked like Bud Dupree was going to be a total bust, and the whole class was going to be a wash. But in 2017, Dupree started to flash with six sacks. His fifth-year option was exercised.

In 2018, once he got moved to the right outside linebacker spot opposite T.J. Watt, Dupree started to thrive. He racked up 19½ sacks over a 27-game stretch in 2019-20 before a knee injury truncated his 2020 season while playing on a franchise tag. That offseason, he signed with the Tennessee Titans.

Second-rounder Senquez Golson never played a down thanks to three consecutive preseason injuries. Sammie Coates had one big game against the New York Jets, another against the Bengals and a good playoff game in Denver. Jesse James and Anthony Chickillo were steady role players, but this was another draft that didn’t produce very much.

• Senquez Golson | Round 2, Pick 56 (CB, Mississippi)

• Sammie Coates | Round 3, Pick 87 (WR, Auburn)

• Doran Grant | Round 4, Pick 121 (CB, Ohio State)

• Jesse James | Round 5, Pick 160 (TE, Penn State)

• Leterrius Walton | Round 6, Pick 199 (DT, Central Michigan)

• Anthony Chickillo | Round 6, Pick 212 (DE, Miami, FL)

• Gerod Holliman | Round 7, Pick 239 (S, Louisville)

Featured Local Businesses

More local businesses