Kovacevic: Never draft for need? Ha!

Brief and to the Point, on non-hockey topics this week ...

Never again let it be spoken, least of all by Mike Tomlin and/or Kevin Colbert, that the Steelers don't draft for need.

Or, for that matter, that they shouldn't draft for need.

Go up and down the ledger at all seven of the picks this past weekend, beginning with a cornerback in the first round, a safety in the second and a defensive lineman in the third ... man, they couldn't have made it more obvious if they had Steely McBeam passing out leaflets in Market Square. In the nude. On fire.

Not that I'm complaining. My goodness, no.



Poor Artie Burns is getting fried from pundit to pundit, not least of which was Pro Football Focus casting the Miami corner among the worst handful of picks from Day 1. He didn't show the performance of a first-rounder "on tape," they said, using "tape" in the same way that football people still adorably refer to "film," as if either still exist. They called him "a reach." They called the Steelers "desperate" at the position.

Well, duh, of course they're desperate at the position.

And you know what people generally do in times of desperation?

Right. They act on it!

Setting aside the specifics on Burns for a moment, we're talking about a wholly legit Super Bowl contender that's come with one glaring weakness above all for the past three years, a group that might well be one impact player at that precise position from winning a seventh Super Bowl ring.

So when the Bengals petulantly picked another corner, William Jackson III, right ahead of the Steelers and in spite of the Steelers, what should Tomlin and Colbert have done?

Concede defeat?

Trade down and risk accepting a corner lower on their own board?

Come on. Be serious. They needed a corner, they needed the best corner they could get, and there's no other feasible avenue at this stage of free agency. And if Burns isn't Jackson right now, maybe he'll at least close the gap before long, given that Jackson is nearly two years older with much more collegiate experience. If anything, Jackson's thickest praise from scouts has been more about his readiness than his potential, so it's not even certain he'll wind up better than Burns once the latter adds some polish.

That's not to compare those two. There will be time enough for that. Rather, it's to stress that the Steelers valued their No. 25 overall pick in a way that would prioritize their greatest need. And there's no shame in that, within the full scope. They aren't the Jaguars or Rams. They aren't building for tomorrow and looking for some franchise linchpin.

The same applies to Sean Davis, the second-rounder who'll set up at strong safety after playing corner at Maryland. For all the concern at corner, the hole next to Mike Mitchell looms just as large, maybe larger if one punts on the notion that Shamarko Thomas will ever amount to anything.

The third-rounder, South Carolina State's Javon Hargrave, is in the same category. Cam Heyward and Stephon Tuitt were playing 73 snaps a game, and that became painfully obvious when their usual high level of play hit a season-low in the playoff loss at Denver. That had to change. And if the glowing reports of Hargrave's athleticism and penetration are accurate, it will change.

Drafts don't and never should occur in a vacuum. Context is everything.

• The Steelers haven't drafted secondary guys early, but they've drafted secondary guys. And the more of them, especially like this, the more the pressure should mount on Carnell Lake to develop them.

Since 2010, not one of the defensive backs they drafted -- Crezdon Butler, Curtis Brown, Cortez Allen, Terrence Frederick, Shamarko Thomas, Terry Hawthorne, Shaquille Richardson, Senquez Golson, Doran Grant, Gerod Holliman -- has panned out. There are all kinds of reasons for that, obviously, and the book is still out on Golson and Grant, but not one has even become an NFL regular.

• If Jarvis Jones is smart -- and he most certainly is -- he'll find a way to work out a long-term extension with the Steelers, even though they declined on Monday night his fifth-year option for 2017 that would have cost $8.369 million that season. Even with James Harrison making his return official earlier in the day, outside linebacker still comes with a better opportunity in Pittsburgh than most places, with Bud Dupree, Arthur Moats and Anthony Chickillo comprising the rest of the depth chart.

• Obsessing over beating one particular opponent, even to the extreme where your front office drafts defensively ... that's what losers do.

• Unfortunately for Tyler Boyd.

• If we're going to rip sports writers for getting suspicious of athletes using steroids -- especially when the athlete sees a sudden, dramatic spike in performance -- then let's also remember that, in the 1990s, reporters were among those being vilified as enablers for having taken so long to ask the hard questions about Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds.

Can't have it both ways, right?

The stories I've heard over the years, mostly at the four Olympics I've covered, would be enough to make anyone cynical on this count. Cheating is rampant. It's right out in the open. It's everywhere.

• Dissect the Pirates' opening month any which way you want, it still comes down to starting pitching: They're 11-3 when the starter goes six-plus innings, 4-8 when it's less than six innings.

Which only serves to underscore the silliness of putting together this terrific offense, while not lifting a pinky finger to address the rotation. If the latter were even ordinary ...

• Hate to see Elias Diaz go under the knife for elbow surgery. Talented, dynamic kid with so much potential. And unlike most position players, catchers really can be set back. Such a big part of Diaz's game is throwing velocity and accuracy.

He'll get it back, of course, but it'll take time. And time won't be on his side with Francisco Cervelli bound for free agency this coming winter.

Sign Cervelli long-term?

No thanks, not at the $13 million salary he'll seek.

• I'll leave most of the hockey fare for the Game 3 column, but I feel compelled to close with this: Any league that administers supplemental justice by weighing the injury of the victim had better be prepared to institute a death penalty at some point.