The dust has officially settled on the 2023 NFL Draft, but the discussion is not yet over. Just like Todd McShay’s annual All-Satellite Team and Mel Kiper’s annual draft grades, an annual tradition of my draft coverage here at BTSC is creating my All-Draft team. This year, however, we are changing it up a little bit.

This year, we are creating two distinct teams. If you have seen my teams in years past, you are probably familiar with my by-round approach. I choose my favorite selection from each round and then choose three other selections I like as “bench” options for that round. I do it for all seven rounds as well as undrafted free agency. We released that team earlier this week, but today, we will be releasing another team which fills out a starting 11 for both offense and defense. To fill out that roster, I will select three players from each round as well as one undrafted free agent.

Here are the official ground rules for the by-round format created back in 2017:

1. Simply choose your favorite four or five players (or fits) taken in each round of the draft.
2. From those lists of four or five players, choose one that you like slightly above the rest. The others are your “bench” options.
3. You cannot be too obvious with your first pick. In other words, Joe Burrow was not allowed back in 2020, and Penei Sewell and Trevor Lawrence were not allowed last year. So this year, no Bryce Young or Will Anderson. Be reasonable with it. Avoid players who were selected or, in some cases, projected to go in the top 5-10 picks of the draft.

From those rules, Rule 3 is really the only one that applies here. You can choose any three players from each round (except consensus top-10 prospects) as well as one undrafted free agent, but the positions must meet the requirements to fill out some sort of traditional package. For example, you cannot have seven wide receivers and only three offensive linemen on offense, and you cannot have 10 defensive tackles on defense (unless you plan on aligning some of them in the secondary and at linebacker).

If there are more players you like in a lower round (i.e. you only like two players in Round 4 and four in Round 5), you are allowed to have an extra player from a lower round, but it does not allow you to have extra selections in another higher round.

It is, in some ways, a different way of grading the draft picks based not only on value, but also on fit. Here is my starting 22 from last year:

QB: Malik Willis —Liberty (3)
RB: Keaontay Ingram — USC (6)
WR1: Christian Watson — North Dakota State (2)
WR2: Khalil Shakir — Boise State (5)
WR3: Bo Melton — Rutgers (7)
TE: Daniel Bellinger — TE — San Diego State (4)
LT: Zach Tom — Wake Forest (4)
LG: Tyler Smith — Tulsa (1)
C: Tyler Linderbaum — C — Iowa (1)
RG: Dylan Parham — G/C — Memphis (3)
RT: Andrew Stueber — Michigan (7)

RDE: Matthew Butler — Tennessee (5)
NT: Travis Jones — Connecticut (3)
LDE: Perrion Winfrey —Oklahoma (4)
ROLB: David Ojabo — Michigan (2)
MACK ILB: D’Marco Jackson (5)
BUCK ILB: Darrian Beavers — Cincinnati (6)
LOLB: Jesse Luketa — Penn State (7)
CB1: Andrew Booth, Jr. — Clemson (2)
CB2: Tariq Castro-Fields — Penn State (6)
FS: Daxton Hill — Michigan (1)
SS: Isaiah Pola-Mao — FS/SS — USC (UDFA)

Enough of previous years. Let’s get to this year’s team! If you would like to participate in this exercise, you can do so by commenting down below with your own team, using the starting-22 format.

Here is my 2023 All-Draft team.

2023 All-Draft Team

Starting-22 format

The round of the player’s selection will be shown in parenthesis after the name.

QB: Aidan O’Connell (4)
RB: Lew Nichols III (7)
WR1: Andrei Iosivas (6)
WR2: Bryce Ford-Wheaton (UDFA)
TE1: Sam LaPorta (2)
TE2: Zack Kuntz (7)
LT: Blake Freeland (4)
LG: Andrew Vorhees (7)
C: Olusegun Oluwatimi (5)
RG: Jake Andrews — C/G (4)
RT: Darnell Wright (1)

Defense (3-3-5 alignment)

RDE: Gervon Dexter (2)
DT: Mazi Smith (1)
LDE: Adetomiwa Adebawore (4)
RUSH LB: Nolan Smith (1)
MIKE LB: Dorian Williams (3)
Hybrid RUSH/SAM LB: Yasir Abdullah (5)
CB1: Joey Porter, Jr. (2)
CB2: Darius Rush (5)
Nickel CB: Steven Gilmore (UDFA)
FS: Cory Trice (7)
SS: Chase Brown (3)

Who would be on your 2023 All-Draft team? Would any Steelers make your team? Be sure to comment down below and share your All-Draft team!