Steelers Now
The best of a very strong group of running backs in the 2025 NFL Draft could be falling to the Pittsburgh Steelers at No. 21 overall in the first round. In his second mock draft of the 2025 cycle on Tuesday, NFL.com draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah projected the Steelers will land Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty in the first round this April.
Jeanty falling to the Steelers would be a bit of a surprise. He’s currently the No. 9 player on the NFL Mock Draft Database consensus big board. In Jeremiah’s first mock draft of the cycle, he had the Boise State rusher going at No. 12 overall to the Dallas Cowboys.
This time around, Jeremiah predicts that Jeanty will start a run of three backs over four picks in the back half of the first round.
“The Steelers spent the past two drafts beefing up their offensive line,” Jeremiah wrote. Now they land a top-five player in the class to run behind it,’
Jeremiah has Jeanty ranked as the No. 3 overall player in the draft class in his personal big board.
Listed at 5-foot-9 and 215 pounds, Jeanty led all FBS rushers with 2,601 yards on 374 carries in 2024, for an eye-popping 7.0 yards per carry average. He scored 30 total touchdowns and finished second in Heisman Trophy voting to Colorado star Travis Hunter.
The Steelers will likely be moving on from Najee Harris at running back, with the four-year starter set to hit free agency. They will need a back to pair with Jaylen Warren this offseason, and Jeanty is probably the top possible option.
But this is a deep running back class, and while Jeremiah has North Carolina’s Omarion Hampton and Ohio State’s TreVeyon Henderson closely following Jeanty in the first round, there will be many potential starting running backs available in later rounds to pair with Warren.
Jeremiah has the Steelers passing on potential impact talent at wide receiver in Ohio State’s Emeka Egbuka and Texas’ Matthew Golden in order to pick Jeanty. He had Golden going to the Steelers in the first version of his 2025 mock draft.
Defensive tackle, the other very deep position in this draft class, could be going earlier than projected. Both Michigan’s Kenneth Graham and Ole Miss’ Walter Nolen were off the board already when the Steelers picked in this mock.
