Days 1 and 2

Interesting stuff in the first 2 days of the NFL Draft. 14 Defensive Tackles taken in the first 95 selections, 13 corners drafted in the top 95, and 9 Offensive tackles selected in this group. Big hulking athletic defensive linemen are hard to find in the world of football and if there are some out there, they will probably get selected in the NFL draft. 6'6"/295 pound DT Cameron Heyward certainly is one of them and the Steelers snapped him up quickly when their first rounder selection came onto the Big Board. Heyward has the versatility the Steelers like. He can play a 4-3 defense DT or he can play 3-4 defense position like Aaron Smith does. He can play the run well and put pressure on the QB from the DT slot. A real good consistent pass rush certainly can make a defensive back's job easier. Out of the 95 selections, only 3 came from non Division 1A schools. They were in the second round OT Benjamin Ijalana from Villanova who is an athletic OT who dominated at the 1AA level. Another 1AA offensive linemen came from Lehigh U. in Will Rackley, a big hulking athletic guard who went in the third round. And the other 1AA draft choice was huge DT from Hampton University named Kendrick Ellis who transferred to Hampton from U. of South Carolina. I watched Kendrick Ellis train for the draft this winter here in Pittsburgh. Ellis is a big strong road grader defensive lineman that NFL teams embellish. When it is all said and done, there will be approximately 15 to 20 players drafted that are not from NCAA Division 1A programs