The Steelers not only hid who their first-round draft pick might be, they hid who would be making the announcement.
Reminder to self: Don't ever play poker with Kevin Colbert.
With much of the focus for the Steelers on taking a linebacker, such as Virginia Tech's Tremaine Edmunds, who went 16th overall to the Bills, nobody thought there might be a second Hokies player the team might like. And nobody thought it would be Edmunds' older brother who would catch the attention of the Steelers.
The Steelers selected Terrell Edmunds with the 28th pick in the first round, taking the speedy 6-1, 217-pound safety just a dozen picks after his younger brother had been taken by the Bills.
Oh, by the way, the pick was announced by injured linebacker Ryan Shazier, who walked onto the stage at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, with fiancée, Michelle Rodriguez, on his arm to make the selection.
"You saw Ryan Shazier take some very inspirational steps," Colbert said. "That’s a huge lift not only for him, but for us. To see where he has come from to where he is and knowing where he might be able to go is beyond inspirational, it’s exciting, and exciting for him."
Not nearly as excited as Terrell Edmunds was after finding out he had been selected in the first round.
Few had the elder Edmunds being selected in the first round. In fact, most draft prognosticators didn't have Terrell Edmunds going anywhere near the first round. Even though he was at AT&T Stadium, he was not one of the 22 players invited. He was there to support his brother, who had been invited by the league to attend.
Even Edmunds admitted to being surprised.
"Surprised? Honestly, I was surprised, honestly," he said. "I’m ready, though. I’m telling you I’m ready. I was praying. I was hoping, and now it’s that time. Time to work."
But, when your entire family has played in the NFL, perhaps it shouldn't be that big of a shock.
Edmunds' father, Ferrell, who was his coach at Dan River High School in Ringgold, Va., played tight end for the Miami Dolphins in the 1980s when a young scout named Kevin Colbert was with the team.
His older brother, Trey, is a running back with the New Orleans Saints. And, we all know about his younger brother, who at 19, was the youngest player available in this draft.
"Very competitive,” said Terrell Edmunds of his childhood. “We stayed in a cul-de-sac with my cousins. We were all out there playing pickup. We called it pick-up-and die. You pick up the ball and run. It was a never-ending game. People were losing teeth, getting cuts. But we kept playing. We were competitive all of the time. You are getting tackled by everybody. It’s you against everybody when you have the ball.”
That football background and love of the game is something the Steelers found intriguing with Edmunds. Mike Tomlin and Colbert had dinner with the family the night before Virginia Tech's pro day. And they learned a lot about both young men.
"I remember my mom questioning them to death," Edmunds said of the meeting. "I didn’t think they liked my parents at the time because my mom, she was asking every question, honestly. My dad was on the case too, but I definitely remember that whole conversation. Everything was going great. It was fantastic."
The Steelers saw Terrell as the more outgoing of the two brothers and were intrigued by his communications skills, both on and off the football field. The more they studied Edmunds, the more they liked.
"He is a very gifted, athletic, physical safety that has played free safety, he has played strong safety, rotating from one to the other on the same play," said Colbert. “He not only has the physical ability to do that, but what has impressed us is his mental ability to be able to move and make the adjustments and be the quarterback on the back end of a really good defense."
A three-year starter for the Hokies, Edmunds appeared in 37 games, making 31 starts. Ten of those starts came in 2017, when he played through a shoulder injury that eventually required surgery, forcing him to end his season early. But that also got the attention of the Steelers.
"He hurt his shoulder in training camp and he played the whole season with a strap on," Colbert said. "He got through their first 10 games and then had to give in because it just became an unbearable thing for him. We really admired that about him. He did as good as he did, really, with one shoulder."
Edmunds had 59 tackles, two interceptions, 1.5 sacks and three pass breakups for the Hokies in 2017, numbers that paled in comparison to his 2016 season, when he had 89 tackles, four interceptions and three pass breakups.
He'll be added to the back end of a defense that now includes free agent signee Morgan Burnett, last year's starting strong safety Sean Davis, and veteran J.J. Wilcox. The Steelers also signed free agent veteran Nat Berhe this offseason, but he's more of a special teams ace.
"He was a really fun evaluation for me," said Tomlin. "Anything you can imagine him doing, you could see him doing at Virginia Tech. You saw him play free (safety), you saw him play strong. You saw him play sub-package linebacker in there alongside his brother. His versatility was exciting. You're not speculating. You saw a lot of things that will be on the menu for him. We got a sharp, young, versatile guy who is a very good communicator. Quite simply, he checked all of the boxes for us."