The formal or informal chats between representatives of NFL teams and draft prospects at the annual combine can span from the spectrum of mundane, awkward, bizarre, informative, conversational and enlightening.

This past winter, more than one soon-to-be drafted player found one topic in particular piqued the mutual interest of him and the team.

“Everybody that I’ve talked to,” Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Payton Wilson said of team management types during the combine, “really loves that I was a wrestler and that I was a state champion wrestler.”

Defensive lineman Logan Lee picked up on that, too, while he was hoping to impress prospective employers.

“Oh, I make sure to bring it up,” Lee said at the combine of his wresting background, “and then the, ‘Oh, ohhh!’ (comes in response).

“So it’s been brought up a lot, and then the folks who appreciate (wrestling), it’s fun to chop it up with them.”

Safe to assume that when Steelers coaches and executives were speaking with draft prospects at the combine that wrestling was broached. While it would be a stretch to say that a background as an elite grappler is the No. 1 priority for the Steelers, it’s clear the organization has an affinity for those who have experience wrestling.

Three of the seven players the Steelers drafted last month were high school state champion wrestlers.

“I just think guys with the wrestling background, they come with balance and body control,” Steelers defensive line coach Karl Dunbar said. “And when you play in the interior, whether it be offensive lineman or defensive line, the wrestling background really helps you because of what did you go through down-in and down-out.”

—Lee, a sixth-round defensive lineman from Iowa, became only the third two-time state champion to come out of Orion High School in Illinois. He won at 220 pounds as a sophomore and 285 pounds as a senior.

—Wilson, a third-round linebacker from N.C. State, went undefeated as a junior for Orange High School in Hillsborough, N.C.

—Second-round pick Zach Frazier, a center from West Virginia, went 159-2 for Fairmont Senior High, winning four West Virginia state championships at 285 pounds and graduating with the highest winning percentage of any high school wrestler in the history of Marion County, W.Va.

None other than Mike Tomlin cited Frazier’s background during the first time he was asked about Frazier after the selection with the No. 51 overall pick.

“He’s got an awesome background from a read perspective (as a) high school wrestling champ, and I’ve got a lot of respect for that combat sport,” Tomlin said. “Just really comfortable with him as a player and as a person.”

Frazier said those two losses among his 161 career varsity matches came during his freshman year — when, as a 15-year-old, he was facing many upperclassmen (some of whom were 18) weighing close to 300 pounds.

“I was just able to overcome that,” Frazier said wryly, “and I didn’t lose again.

“I think it’s good for younger kids to just play as many sports as they can. Because, like for me, there’s a lot of things in wrestling that carry over to football. And I think it’s just good to make well-rounded athletes especially at that age.”

This year’s state-champion trio joins Keeanu Benton — a defensive lineman taken in the second round last year — as former high school state wrestling finalists recently drafted by the Steelers.

The team’s attraction to top wrestlers surely is not a correlation, but it’s also not a coincidence.

“I tell people all the time,” Wilson said at the combine, “I argue with so many guys because they want to talk about basketball or this or that. Wrestling instills a lot into you. Just when it comes to football itself, hand fighting. I think if I can get my hands on you, you’re coming to the ground. I understand leverage and torque.

“But wrestling is different. In football, if you mess up, you have 10 other guys to help you out. But wrestling, you mess up, you’re going on top of your head and you’re getting embarrassed in front of your mom, your dad, your friends. So, that mentality and anger and aggression, it instills with you.”