Why Steelers Need to Wait to Draft a QB | Steelers Morning Rush
Welcome to Steelers Morning Rush, our new daily short-form podcast with Alan Saunders, giving a longer perspective on a single news topic surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers or the National Football League. Today, it’s the Steelers drafting another potential starting quarterback, and why they won’t do that in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
The Steelers currently play amid one of the greatest collections of quarterback talent in one conference in the league’s history. The AFC North features Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson. In the rest of the AFC, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes lurk. Even the upper middle class of the conference, players like Justin Herbert, Trevor Lawrence and Tua Tagovailoa, were all top-six draft picks with extremely high ceilings, even if they have yet to be able to live up to that standard.
Pittsburgh is picking at No. 21 overall in the first round this year. They’re not going to get a player with that kind of upside at that slot. They tried this with Kenny Pickett, a high-floor, low-ceiling prospect. He did not come close to even his lower ceiling in his two years in Pittsburgh, and now the elite defense that was supposed to be able to draft Pickett to success is three years older.
They can’t fall into that same line of thinking again. It’s one thing to take chances on the scrap heap a la Justin Fields. The Steelers could make a trade for Joe Milton or sign Trey Lance, and that would be a low-priced swing at a solution. Even a lower-upside option like Ohio State’s Will Howard in the later rounds is fine. Everyone needs backups and bridge starters.
But if they’re going to invest signifiant draft resources on a quarterback, and then give him the multiple years of playing time required to see that investment through, it has to be a player with the ceiling to actually be competitive with the AFC’s best.
Jalen Milroe has that ceiling in this year’s draft class. Jaxson Dart does not. One pick Omar Khan can justify, even if it’s a failure. The other would be a failure, even if it’s a success. Even if Dart reaches his ceiling, what good does having the eighth-best quarterback in the AFC do for the Steelers?
Alan breaks it down.
