If there’s one factor to ding the Pittsburgh Steelers for within the 2025 NFL Draft, it will be passing on a quarterback till the sixth spherical. The quarterback place has been their greatest Achilles’ heel as a franchise lately. There is no such thing as a shiny future with out fixing that problem. ESPN analyst Mina Kimes hoped they’d be extra aggressive in addressing that problem.
“I might’ve taken a quarterback earlier, simply to be blunt,” Kimes mentioned by way of ESPN’s NFL Reside. “I don’t begrudge them skipping on quarterback within the first spherical. I truly love the Derrick Harmon decide…However after that, that they had a few alternatives, I believe, to take a swing on one. Jalen Milroe within the third spherical, they took a working again Kaleb Johnson. After which within the fourth, as an alternative of taking [Shedeur] Sanders, they took Jack Sawyer.”
I don’t disagree along with her line of pondering within the slightest, however the best way the board broke for quarterbacks was not best for the Steelers to take a giant swing. That they had their selection within the first spherical of any quarterback not named Cam Ward, they usually handed. They clearly weren’t in love with Jaxson Dart or Tyler Shough sufficient at No. 21 total, or they might have picked them.
The Steelers have actually gotten again to emphasizing drafting for worth. Taking the perfect soccer participant out there was all the time part of the Steelers’ system for achievement till the later years of Ben Roethlisberger’s profession. They began reaching for positions of want in an try and capitalize on Roethlisberger’s window. It didn’t work, and it actually set them again.
In the event that they didn’t have a conviction on Shough or Dart at No. 21, I can’t knock them for that. And Kimes didn’t both. Her greatest problem was the third and fourth-round strategy. The 2 quarterbacks that might have made sense at No. 83 total would have been Shedeur Sanders or Jalen Milroe.
Milroe is a lottery ticket. There may be high-end potential, however the flooring can be extraordinarily low as an NFL quarterback. His inaccuracy can’t be downplayed. And not using a second-round decide, the Steelers would have been in a troublesome spot to handle their different wants. Kaleb Johnson was sitting there at No. 83, which is a superb worth at a place of want. It’s onerous to knock that philosophy.
The league gave a powerful reply on what they consider Sanders as a quarterback. If the Steelers valued him as extremely as what was reported main as much as the draft, he could be in black and gold proper now. He as an alternative ended up falling to the fifth spherical.
Ought to the Steelers have taken a swing within the fourth spherical as an alternative of Jack Sawyer? An argument can definitely be made there, however the Steelers had Sawyer a lot increased up on their board.
“You gotta take some swings,” Kimes mentioned. “Individuals say, nicely, they’ll go for it subsequent 12 months. Frankly, we’re speaking a few crew that by no means picks within the high 10 as a result of they don’t lose that many video games, they usually’re additionally in a division that simply loaded up on draft picks for subsequent 12 months. So I don’t see that as a plan…I simply want that they had been a little bit bit extra aggressive on the place.”
I don’t disagree along with her logic. But it surely’s not price taking a swing when the pitches are being tossed into the dust.
Reaching for positions of want obtained the Steelers into this place within the first place. Had they spent the final decade drafting the perfect gamers out there, they most likely wouldn’t be on this purgatory.
As an alternative, they discovered nice worth in Ohio State QB Will Howard. Our Alex Kozora gave him a second-round grade, and Jon Gruden was additionally very excessive on his potential in his episode of Gruden’s QB Class.
They’re much higher set as much as take the swing subsequent 12 months with considerably extra draft capital.
