Steelers Now
The Pittsburgh Steelers wisely put the quarterback position on the back burner this offseason, passing on the position until selecting Will Howard in the sixth round of the 2025 NFL Draft and keeping their options open for next spring, where the talent in the 2026 NFL Draft class should be much more robust.
Even if the 2026 quarterback class still has a lot to prove, there are a myriad of talented options that could work their way into first round consideration. If you include projected compensatory selections, general manager Omar Khan currently has accumulated a dozen picks at his disposal, with five of those coming on the first two days of the draft. Perhaps even more notably, they still own their own 2027 first-rounder in the event that they feel inclined to make a massive jump up the order.
The moral of the story? They have plenty of ammunition to go get their guy. Vegas has their over/under set at 8.5 wins and if that outcome was to come to fruition, they’d be slotted somewhere in the mid-teens — a very easy jumping-off point.
But the Steelers aren’t the only team that will be in pursuit of a quarterback. For tracking purposes, it’s worth taking a gander at the other organizations that they’ll likely be competing with in the arms race. Keep an eye on these teams as we make our way through the season.
While Cleveland’s roster isn’t completely devoid of talent, a quarterback room consisting of Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders worth taking seriously, meaning this team is slated for a poor record and subsequent top pick. Not only that, they also own the Jacksonville Jaguars’ first-rounder in 2026. Barring something unforeseen, the Browns are the team best-positioned to take the top quarterback next April. The bigger question involves whether it’ll be a different regime making the selection.
Tyler Shough was the team’s second-round selection, and with the recent news of Derek Carr’s retirement, he’s going to get the chance to play right away. However, I’m pretty skeptical of how that experiment will play out, and to be fair, that’s not strictly an indictment of him as a player. Over the past half decade plus, this is a franchise that’s grossly mismanaged their cap situation just to stay afloat, and now, the erosion of the roster has fully set in. They seem destined for a top-five pick unless Kellen Moore is a prodigy first-timer.
With the Aaron Rodgers saga in the rearview, I could see Aaron Glenn’s group being feisty in his coaching debut, given some of the talent on the defensive side of the ball. With that being said, the team signed Justin Fields to be a stopgap starter, but he’s just not been consistent enough to this point in his career. From an odds perspective, only the Browns have a lower projected win total for next season. Through recent drafts, the...
