Pittsburgh Steelers mock draft: USC receiver leaps up

With just two weeks remaining before the start of the NFL Draft, we're starting to see some of the national prognosticators solidify their boards. Players are moving up or down based on final analysis or based on some of the scuttlebutt they're hearing.

Some of that is based on medical issues. For example, Arizona State’s Brandon Aiyuk had surgery recently to repair a core muscle injury. He’d obviously been dealing with that for some time.

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Will teams hold that against Aiyuk, a top-10 receiver in this class? We'll see.

One thing we haven’t gotten a lot of this year -- because most people around the country are shut in -- are the smoke screens we’re usually getting by now. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information -- or misinformation -- floating about.

Round 2, pick 49 -- Michael Pittman, WR, USC (previous pick, J.K. Dobbins, RB, Ohio State): At 6-foot-4, 223 pounds, Pittman is similar in size to Plaxico Burress. And with his 4.52-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine, Pittman is faster than Burress, who ran a 4.59 40 when he came out in 2000 and was Kevin Colbert’s first first-round pick with the Steelers. The only difference is that Burress was a top-10 pick and the Steelers are getting Pittman at 49. That’s how deep this draft is with receivers. Pittman also catches the ball better than Burress, who was more of a body-catcher. Pittman has natural hands. He caught 101 passes last season at USC. As a bonus, Pittman was an outstanding special teams player, earning All-Pac-12 honors early in his career and finishing with 17 career tackles, three blocked kicks and a punt-return touchdown. Oh, and his father, Michael Sr., had a decade-long career as a running back in the NFL. And we know how the Steelers love players with an NFL background. Pittman, who played with JuJu Smith-Schuster as a freshman at USC, screams Steelers draft pick, which is why I passed on J.K. Dobbins, my top-ranked running back, and Jonathan Taylor, to take him, hoping that with three of my top five backs still on the board, one might be available with the next pick. The Steelers had good luck taking Smith-Schuster in the second round in 2017. They go that route again with another USC pass-catcher.

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