It is imperative for the success of any team to be able to have some degree of success in discovering talent with a minimum of resources, whether it’s late-round draft picks, undrafted talent, or cheap free agents who lacked an opportunity with their previous team.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have gone up and down in terms of this sort of acquisition of talent, though have had particular success along the offensive line during the Mike Munchak era, developing Alejandro Villanueva, Chris Hubbard, B.J. Finney, and Matt Feiler, among others—Fred Johnson, Patrick Morris, and now J.C. Hassenauer as well.
Villanueva could probably be described as a home run—he is, after all, a two-time Pro Bowl left tackle who protected Ben Roethlisberger’s blindside ably for six years—but if there is another, then it has to be nickel cornerback Mike Hilton, who like Villanueva is now on the cusp of cashing in handsomely in free agency.