2014 NFL Mock Draft: Pittsburgh Steelers Select...

First off, I'm very grateful to all of you that voted. BTSC wouldn't be the best Pittsburgh Steelers site around without the support of our incredible community (both active commenters and passive readers), so when it came time to pick for our favorite team in our community mock draft, it only made sense to trust your vote.

With the 15th pick, the Pittsburgh Steelers select Darqueze Dennard, CB, Michigan State.

Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

There are perfectly reasonable arguments for why each of the top vote-getters should be the pick here. There are also perfectly reasonable criticisms for why each one of them should not be. What matters most here is that Dennard won in an absolute runaway - with more than 2.5 times as many votes as the second place finisher.

I'm not going to talk at length about Dennard, as anything I might say would just be rehashing much more interesting work that's elsewhere on the site - like Steel34D's illustrated breakdown of Dennard or Tony Defeo's musings on the Steelers' 17-year disinterest in drafting 1st round corners and how there's a time for every trend to end. Dennard may not be the sexiest height/weight/speed prospect (5'11, 200 lbs, 4.51 40-time at the Combine), but he must have consistently been able to do a lot of things right to be named the best defensive back in college football this past year.

Aside from Cortez Allen, there are no young, drafted corners currently being developed in the Steelers' system. Couple that bare cupboard with Ike Taylor almost certainly set to play his final season in the black and gold, and Dennard could well be the first of what will almost certainly be multiple picks for young blood to shore up the secondary.

	Team	Player	Pos	School	BTSC rep/link to pick
1		Blake Bortles	QB	UCF	SteelerWolf
2	via	Johnny Manziel	QB	Texas A&M	Jack Finn
3		Teddy Bridgewater	QB	Louisville	twault
4		Jadeveon Clowney	DE	South Carolina	Double-Eagle
5		Jake Matthews	OT	Texas A&M	diehardsteelerfan625
6		Khalil Mack	LB	Buffalo	Erik Stone
7		Sammy Watkins	WR	Clemson	TheCommish
8		C.J. Mosley	LB	Alabama	VinnySteel
9		Greg Robinson	OT	Auburn	Sean Geddes
10		Anthony Barr	OLB	UCLA	JDSpartan
11		Justin Gilbert	CB	Oklahoma St	slatts17
12		Mike Evans	WR	Texas A&M	omara891
13		Ha Ha Clinton-Dix	S	Alabama	Panther pride 76
14		Aaron Donald	DT	Pittsburgh	Michael Uhlhorn
15		Darqueze Dennard	CB	Michigan St	(community vote)
16					steeler fever
17					Steelers_Fan_to_the_Core
18					DropTheHammer
19					steeler_chris_5
20					Wichita SunSteeler
21					(?)barnerburner(?)
22					c63tho
23					WelcomeToReality
24					Steel Spike
25					L-Ray
26	via				AMKrup
27					Ike Evans
28					asmith87
29					furthur56
30					Collision Course
31					alexryan
32					Thoroughbred of Sin