Florio: Steelers Could Absolutely Overdraft Jaxson Dart in First Round
Mike Florio of NBC Sports believes Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart has a good chance to be the Pittsburgh Steelers first-round pick.
There is growing belief that the Pittsburgh Steelers could select a quarterback with their first-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Given their draft position (No. 21), there’s a good chance of that being a reach if it were to happen.
Mike Florio of NBC Sports thinks that could be the case with Mississippi’s Jaxson Dart.
“Oh, absolutely,” Florio said on Pittsburgh’s 93.7 The Fan. “Quarterbacks get overdrafted because a franchise quarterback is such a precious commodity. If you think of every draft pick as a lottery ticket, for certain lottery tickets, the payoff is so significant that you’re willing to take the risk on that ticket.”
Dart, 21, has been rising up draft boards over the past couple of months. He is currently the consensus No. 26 overall player on the NFL Mock Draft Database big board, but that could turn out to be a big reach.
Dart is an intriguing prospect after throwing for 10,617 yards, 72 touchdowns and 22 interceptions during his three years at Mississippi. He also rushed for 1,500 yards and 12 more scores.
However, there’s a strong argument that Dart’s rise is more a product of supply and demand than his talent.
This isn’t to say Dart doesn’t have the tools to be successful at the next level, but he certainly comes at more of a risk than the top two quarterback prospects in Miami’s Cam Ward and Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders.
Instead, it would be smart of the Steelers to use their first-round pick to address one of their other needs and then take a shot on a mid-round quarterback later in the draft.
Florio doesn’t seem to be a fan of that idea, though.
“Unless you get lucky and draft a Tom Brady with pick No. 199, you’re gonna find a franchise quarterback more often than not in the first round of the draft,” Florio said. “Gone are the days where there’s some hidden gem like Tony Romo at Eastern Illinois that didn’t have a chance to transfer and didn’t have a chance to develop in college and nobody really understood how good he was.”
Either way, it’s safe to assume Pittsburgh will draft a quarterback at some point. The question is, how high?