Why you should be excited about third-round offensive tackle Chukwuma Okorafor:
-At 6-foot-6 and 320 pounds, Okorafor looks like he belongs on an NFL offensive line. "You draw it up, this is what a right tackle looks like," NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock observed.
-Dane Brugler's 2018 NFL Draft Guide was also impressed with Okorafor's potential: "Overall, Okorafor has remarkable physical ability with his size and movement skills."
-Okorafor started for three seasons at Western Michigan, including the last two at left tackle. He started 39 of 51 career games played for the Broncos.
-Okorafor is a two-time, first-team All-Mid-American Conference selection and was a semifinalist for the 2017 Outland Trophy, given annually to the nation's top interior lineman.
-He's a native of Nigeria and arrived in the United States from Botswana in 2010 and didn't start playing football until his sophomore year at Southfield High School in suburban Detroit (initially he was a kicker and a punter). Okorafor has only played offensive line for six years, which means he's far from a developed, finished product. "You see him get better each year, each time out there playing because it's new to him and that's kind of exciting for me because you get a guy that doesn't have a whole lot of bad habits," Steelers offensive line coach Mike Munchak said.
-Okorafor arrives in the wake of offensive lineman Chris Hubbard's departure to Cleveland via free agency. "We lost one of our tackles this year, so 'Chuks,' I think, is a guy who will fit kind of what we're looking for, a guy that can play left and right tackle," Munchak said.
