The Pittsburgh Steelers are a bit of a mess right now, and unfortunately, that’s becoming all too common. The biggest thing at the moment is waiting for Aaron Rodgers to make up his mind. The Steelers would surely welcome him back for another season as the starting quarterback, as the team did win the AFC North with a respectable 10-7 record in 2025.
However, waiting for Rodgers to make a decision is a massive indictment of where this franchise is right now – Pittsburgh’s best path forward to success in 2026 is likely Rodgers returning, but he was, at best, a top-20 quarterback last year and on the wrong side of 40.
Not only do they have a massive quarterback issue to figure out right now, but the Steelers’ front office made a major flub in Round 1 of the 2026 NFL Draft, and as soon as the mess-up went public, the hits started to come, and they have not stopped since…
Pittsburgh Steelers continue to get hammed for the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft
Brent Sobleski, in Bleacher Report, listed the Steelers first-round pick in a ‘draft do-over’ exercise on Bleacher Report, and it seems like the NFL media continues to hammer Pittsburgh for this pick:
“The Pittsburgh Steelers could have basked in the glow of being an outstanding host for the 2026 draft, but their front office made a critical mistake in this year’s first round that quickly became public and basically ruined the team’s initial selection.
Before Pittsburgh was on the clock with the 21st overall pick, the team called wide receiver Makai Lemon to tell him he would be its selection. However, the Philadelphia Eagles traded up to the 20th overall pick and sniped the USC product before the Steelers could actually select the reigning Fred Biletnikoff Award winner.
“You don’t make the call until you’re on the clock,” an executive from another team told Sando. “It’s crazy.”
“They think they are tying up the phone lines so the other team moves on because they can’t get in touch with the player,” another exec said. “All it takes is you to call the player, and if another team calls the agent and they’re like, ‘Oh, he’s on the phone with so-and-so,’ now they know who you’re picking.”
What’s not exactly known is if the Eagles caught wind of the Steelers’ intentions. Maybe Philadelphia always planned to make that move.
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman didn’t let on one way or the other:
“We just felt like this was a player that we wanted to go up and get. Just based on where our board was at that time, where we were picking, just felt like it made a lot of sense based on our board. Obviously, when you have a player that you like that’s ranked higher on your board than where you’re picking, you think at every pick that he’s gonna be selected. That’s just the way the draft is, you think everyone’s thinking the way that you are, and so certainly for us, we didn’t want to sit on our hands. We wanted to go get him, and so that’s why we made a trade.”
Whether or not the Eagles originally intended to trade up, Pittsburgh clearly botched the moment and selected Max Iheanachor. With all the pomp and circumstance that surrounded that particular selection, the Steelers had to quickly change direction and land someone other than their top choice.
Think before you dial.”
The one thing I would note here is that selecting Max Iheanachor, the player, was not at all a bad pick. He’s got a ton of upside and is a future starter at one of the tackle spots. In today’s NFL, the three most important qualities of a team are the quarterback, being able to pressure an opposing quarterback, and being able to protect your quarterback.
Pittsburgh has typically always had a strong pass rush, and over the past few years, this front office has poured a ton of resources into the offensive line. It’s never a bad idea to bolster the trenches at any point in an NFL Draft or free agency, so Ihenachor himself was a solid get.
But the process that unfolded in Round 1 was flat-out inexcusable and a pathetic scenario that the Steelers’ front office found themselves in. The most ridiculous part of this scenario isn’t being leap-frogged by the Philadelphia Eagles for Makai Lemon; it’s the fact that the Steelers called Lemon before they were even on the clock!
General Manager Omar Khan and the rest of the Steelers front office have made some rock-solid moves in recent years, but the inability to fix the quarterback position has been a sore spot, and being embarrassed like this in the NFL Draft does truly make you wonder if this front office is the right one to lead this team beyond this tier of irrelevance they find themselves in.
