The Steelers traded up from the No. 24 pick in the fourth round to the No. 14 pick and took Washington nose tackle Alameda Ta’amu out of the University of Washington. Ta’amu and Alabama’s Josh Chapman were the best nose tackles remaining, and the Steelers certainly need one, given Casey Hampton’s age and injury troubles, so this makes sense. Amusingly, though, after the Steelers picked David DeCastro in the first round, the Pittsburgh sports talk station 93.7 The Fan repeatedly played a clip of DeCastro’s offensive line coach bragging about how badly DeCastro had owned Ta’amu (he wasn’t named, but that’s who the coach was talking about). Still, in the fourth round, Ta’amu represents good value as a capable, big-bodied nose tackle.
The Steelers gave the Redskins their fourth-round and sixth-round picks in the trade, so they no longer have a sixth-round pick.
Here are the Steelers’ picks so far:
1. David DeCastro
2. Mike Adams
3. Sean Spence
4. Alameda Ta’amu
For more on the draft, check out Mocking The Draft.