The NFL Draft is now officially over. Over the last three days, the Pittsburgh Steelers made seven total picks, leaning heavily on the defensive side of the ball as they try and bulk up their roster ahead of the 2025 season.
A lot of what the Steelers were expected to do didn’t happen. They didn’t take a quarterback early on in this draft. They didn’t trade up or back into the second round last night. And they didn’t take any wide receiver during the draft.
But the unpredictability of the draft is what makes it fun. Mock drafts are awesome, but if they were always right, there would be no point in watching the draft.
With that said, I wanted to break down my five takeaways from how the Steelers approached this draft. Let’s get into it.
1. The Steelers Were Absolutely Traumatized By That Playoff Loss
After starting 10-3, the Steelers limped into the NFL playoffs last season when they lost four straight games to end the regular season. Their offense became anemic and their defense started to crumble around them.
During that four game train wreck, the Steelers were trampled in Baltimore by the Ravens during their Week 16 matchup. Ravens running back Derrick Henry ran for 162 yards on the Steelers’ defense, the third highest output of the season for him. Quarterback Lamar Jackson and backup running back Justice Hill tacked on some more as the Ravens totaled 220 rushing yards against Pittsburgh in their 34-17 win.
That was just a sign of things to come for the Steelers. Three weeks later, those same two teams met in Baltimore once more during wild card weekend. The Ravens, as a team, ran for a whopping 299 yards as they gashed the Steelers’ weak run defense again and again. Henry alone put up close to 200.
To try and shore up their prized defense, the Steelers went heavy on the defensive front in this draft. With that image of Henry running free as six Steelers chased him probably still in their minds, the Steelers invested their first round pick in the trenches for the third year in a row.
With Jaxson Dart and Shedeur Sanders (who we will come back to) still on the board, the Steelers shocked the crowd in Green Bay when they selected Oregon product Derrick Harmon with the 21st overall pick.
They took five defensive players overall. In the fourth round, the Steelers selected edge rusher Jack Sawyer from Ohio State. In the fifth round, they took defensive tackle Yahya Black out of Iowa.
They wrapped up the draft with two defensive players in the seventh round too, for their most defense-heavy draft class since 2019.
2. Shedeur Sanders Was More Than Just A Smokescreen
With the Steelers having Mason Rudolph penciled in as their Week 1 starter right now, the Steelers were linked to almost every quarterback in this draft.
As first round options, Dart and Sanders were both heavily speculated as potential options for the Steelers to try and bring in a rookie quarterback they could develop.
But a growing conspiracy before the draft was that Sanders was nothing more than a smokescreen for the Steelers. Now, that’s a lot of work for the organization to do to ultimately try and throw other teams off their scent.
The Steelers went far enough as to bring in Sanders for a visit a few weeks ago. Sanders graded his visit in Pittsburgh very high, but some other sources claimed that meeting “did not go well.”
Whichever version of the story is true, the Steelers showed during the draft that they had no interest in Sanders — passing on him three different times.
However, the Steelers were far from alone in that feeling. Sanders, who was penned by some as a first round quarterback, fell all the way to the fifth round in an unprecedented plummet before the Cleveland Browns finally took him. And I’ll be honest, I think that pick was made by the owner and not the front office, based on their reaction to the pick on video.
One can only wonder how much farther Sanders would have fallen had the Browns not selected their second quarterback of the day with the 144th overall pick.
3: George Pickens Will Be A Steeler In 2025
The Steelers did not have a second round pick heading into the 2025 draft, as a result of the DK Metcalf trade.
A popular idea for trying to get more involved in night two of the draft was to trade wide receiver George Pickens — who is in the final year of his rookie deal — for a second round pick (or even a high third) and get some extra draft capital.
I was always vehemently against that idea for the simple reason that every good NFL team needs two great wide receivers. We all spent last season rightfully complaining about how thin Pittsburgh’s wide receiver corps was. Now that the team finally has someone to pair with Pickens, trading him away would have made no sense.
The only way that would have worked was if the Steelers used their first round pick on a wide receiver, or used whatever pick they got for Pickens as his replacement. Well, they didn’t use their first rounder on a wideout, and they didn’t deal Pickens for a pick.
So, Pickens should be here come training camp.
4: The Steelers Still Believe Aaron Rodgers Is Coming Here
The Steelers were portrayed by pundits as in on almost every quarterback in this draft, and for understandable reasons. After they let both Justin Fields and Russell Wilson walk, the Steelers had to completely overhaul their quarterback room once again.
But as the draft unfolded, the Steelers addressed other areas. They didn’t take Dart, they didn’t take Sanders, and they didn’t seem to even entertain names like Tyler Shough, Kyle McCord, or Quinn Ewers.
The Steelers did eventually take a quarterback in this draft, but they waited quite a long time to do it. They took Ohio State product Will Howard in the sixth round, 185th overall, as their quarterback selection in this year’s draft. Howard is coming off of a National Championship with the Buckeyes in a season where he threw 35 touchdowns and just over 4,000 yards.
Now, I like Howard. There’s some upside there for sure and as a sixth round pick, that is decent value. But I still believe that the Steelers would not like to go into the season with a quarterback room that consists of Rudolph, Howard, and Skylar Thompson.
I am on the record saying that the Steelers should have forgotten about Aaron Rodgers and moved on, but clearly they are still interested and Mike Tomlin seems to firmly believe they can get a deal done with him.
This draft approach seems to only strengthen the idea that the Steelers still believe they are getting Rodgers.
5: The Kenny Pickett Pick Forced The Steelers To Wait
Three years ago, the Steelers were in a very similar situation to the one they were in Thursday night. The Steelers had just lost a veteran quarterback, Rudolph was in line to be the starter, and the quarterback class that year was weak.
Three years ago, they reached by taking Kenny Pickett out of the hometown University of Pittsburgh. Even now, over a year and two teams removed, Pickett is a source of contention in this town.
Pickett had massive shoes to fill as the next great Steelers quarterback, and ultimately he didn’t have the talent level to pull that off. Pickett is still plenty young and has time to turn in a solid NFL career (though the road to do that in Cleveland just got a lot tougher), but he just didn’t work here in Pittsburgh.
That draft error has hung over the Steelers as they’ve cycled through quarterbacks over the last few years. This season, they had a chance to try that formula again…and they didn’t take it.
The Steelers did the exact opposite of reaching for a quarterback; they rolled the dice round after round that someone they liked would still be there. That game cost them Jalen Milroe and Sanders in the later rounds, but it allowed them to stand their ground and take Howard all the way in the sixth round.
Whether Howard turns into anything is yet to be seen, but for the price of a sixth round pick, it is sure worth the try. Take a flyer on him and see what happens. It’s a lot better than trying to force something that isn’t there.
Fifth Avenue Sports 
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