The Steelers spent the second of their third-round picks in the NFL on Western Michigan's Chukwuma Okorafor, a 6-foot-6, 320-pound offensive tackle. So while Mason Rudolph represented the potential future of the quarterback position, Okorafor might be his blindside protector.
Okorafor has the prototypical build of an NFL tackle with the size to match up with any premier edge rusher. But big left tackles are always in high demand and three were selected in the first round. Okorafor was the ninth selected in the draft.
So why was Okorafor passed up on for eight others?
We get into the film room to illustrate that answer ...
The first thing I noticed about Okorafor was how he often settled for simply getting his job done. While many offensive linemen encounter the problem of confusion on where to go and who to attack, Okorafor's issues stem from not being aggressive enough when he gets to his assignment.
While his size could naturally win him plenty of battles simply by getting to the right spot, a coach would want to see a player use that size to finish blocks and drive their opponents well off the ball to clear more space and dominate the line.
Okorafor did not do that often enough. Here he is blocking right at the point of attack against Michigan State. Watch how he definitely gets to the right spot to take on his linebacker, but once they meet there is no movement. A lineman of his size accelerating freely to a linebacker should be able to do a little more damage than the impact that's created here:
This is why Okorafor didn't make a bigger name for himself in college. Scouts love to see big plays by linemen when they drive defenders off the ball or have imposing big hits that crush defenders and set the tone for the offense. Okorafor's tape did not show enough of those moments because he often settled for simply doing his job.
Just doing your job and going through the motions isn't enough in the NFL. Okorafor was good at knowing who he was supposed to block, but following through on his assignment was a problem against defenders that don't give up when Okorafor got his hands on them.
Here he is later in the same game against Michigan State getting beat into his interior gap by a simple spin move. The edge rusher set up Okorafor by attacking his outside shoulder and then spinning to the inside shoulder as soon as Okorafor lunged out of his stance:
Part of Okorafor's issues stemmed from coming out of stance riding too high. Offensive linemen often win their battles in the trenches by being the lower man or keeping their center of gravity low enough so that they can exert more of the strength from their build.
When one stands up, they can lose the advantage granted by their size. That's often how smaller pass rushers either work around tackles or power through them. This example from Western Michigan's game against Toledo showed what happened when a simple speed rusher just ran around Okorafor. Notice how high he comes out of his stance and how he never gets to engage the rusher, allowing him to take an untouched path to the quarterback:
Fortunately for Okorafor, he has NFL Hall of Fame lineman Mike Munchak as his offensive line coach with the Steelers. Munchak has done a noteworthy job of improving the Steelers' offensive line over the years and has helped two undrafted players become starters on the line in the form of Ramon Foster and Alejandro Villanueva.
But there have also been the fair share of offensive linemen that have not panned out under Munchak. So far, one of which has been Jerald Hawkins, a fourth round draft pick from LSU that hasn't proven to be the reliable backup the Steelers thought he could become.
Going into 2017, the Steelers knew that Villanueva would cost a good amount of money to keep around. However they also knew that Hawkins was a young player that could take on the role of a tackle. When that didn't manifest, the Steelers signed Villanueva to a bigger deal.
Okorafor will be coming into camp to directly challenge Hawkins for the spot left vacant by Hubbard. He'll have Munchak coaching him every step of the way, but it will be up to him to develop more of a mean streak on the field and refine the technique issues that dropped him down in the rankings of tackles in his draft class.
