Steelers Could Have Willing Partner in Trade-Down Scenario

If the Pittsburgh Steelers want to trade down from their first-round pick at No. 20 in the 2024 NFL Draft, they may have a willing trade partner.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have pick No. 26 in the first round, and Bucs general manager Jason Licht said in an interview with Buccaneers.com on April 11 that the Steelers’ pick at No. 20 is about where they would start to consider a move up the board.

“I’d say around pick 20, we’ll know if we want to start attempting to move up or not,” Licht said. “I would say right now, I like the thought of the way I really have a lot of trust in my staff – both the coaching staff and the scouting staff – and how we’ve been operating. Those picks seem pretty important to me, right now.”

In addition to pick No., 26, the Buccaneers have pick No. 57 in the second round and two picks in the third round at picks No. 89 and 92 — plenty of ammunition to trade up if they’d like to. The DraftTek.com Rich Hill trade value chart projects that the Steelers would net pick No. 89 in a trade down from No. 20 to No. 26.

Of course, the Steelers might prefer to stick with pick No. 20, depending on how the board looks. The Steelers have shown significant interest in players that would almost certainly not be available in a trade-down scenario, like Oregon State tackle Taliese Fuaga, Alabama tackle JC Latham, Washington tackle/guard Troy Fautau, and Georgia tackle Amarius Mims.

But they’ve also shown interest in other players that might be better fits if they trade back, like Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson, Duke center/tackle Graham Barton, West Virginia center Zach Frazier and Oklahoma tackle Tyler Guyton.

The Steelers haven’t traded down in the first round since they moved from No. 16 to No. 19 while landing nose tackle Casey Hampton out of Texas in the first round in 2001. In Omar Khan’s first draft as the team’s general manager last year, Khan traded up in the first round, and then moved down in the third round to recoup the missing draft pick.