FanHouse A.Q. Shipley

It doesn't seem to matter if the Pittsburgh Steelers are coming off a non-playoff season or a Super Bowl title, at the start of training camp there always seems to be plenty of worries about their offensive line. It's been a common thread at the start of each and every training camp over the past four years.

It's business as usual this year, which means that the team's biggest concern is whether Trai Essex is ready to be a starter at guard and can a year of playing together make a big difference for the rest of the projected starters. We got our first glimpse against the Cardinals last Thursday night. So what did they show?

The NFL may be worrying about Twitter and most NFL teams treat the simplest news that is bound to get out as if it's a state secret, but with open practices and quality reporters, it's pretty easy to get a good idea of what's going on at training camp.

Between Jim Wexell's tweeting and posts at Steel City Insider, vrabinec's incredibly detailed posts over at draftsteel.com and the rest of the in-person rundowns over at SteelerFury.com and Behind The Steel Curtain, there's a heck of a lot of good information out there.

Here's a summary of some notes culled from the first-person reports.

With the draft less than a week away, it's time to start firming up the draft boards. When the draft begins, the Steelers will have multiple needs, although thankfully there is no position where the Steelers don't bring back a projected starter with some experience.

The Steelers bigger need is to plan ahead for 2010, when free agency could rip apart much of this past year's Super Bowl champs. With that in mind here are four plausible draft classes for the Steelersn as prepared by friend the Steelers draft nut, all of these include no trades. Every player is projected to go in a round where multiple draft experts still have them available on the board. There are a few spots where it is noted that it is less likely that player is still on the board when the Steelers pick in that round, but none of these are absurd stretches. Which of these classes would you prefer and why?