Steelers Now
The Pittsburgh Steelers will get to see what their first-round draft pick, Max Iheanachor, can do in just a few weeks. Former Steelers running back Merril Hoge believes the team has something special in the rookie offensive tackle.
“At the end of the day, championships are won closest to the ball, period,” Hoge said Friday on the “Straight Facts Homie!” podcast. “Nobody will ever change my opinion on that, nobody can argue otherwise. That is the foundation of football. … That left tackle, at the time, I hadn’t watched him. I had studied a bunch of players, he is not one them. As soon as I heard he didn’t have a lot of experience, he’d only been playing a couple of years, the second I put him on tape, I was like, ‘Had I not known that, there’s no evidence that he’s not been playing for 20 years — since he was in diapers.’
“That’s how good he is, fundamentally — feet, hips to hands. He was terrific.”
If Iheanachor’s skills translate, Hoge said he thinks he can make an impact immediately. The Steelers also roster Troy Fautanu, Broderick Jones and Dylan Cook at offensive tackle, and no spots have been pinned down yet.
Iheanachor, who was born in Nigeria and moved to Compton when he was 13, didn’t play football until he arrived at East Los Angeles College. Two seasons later, he joined Arizona State, with whom he started 30 games at right tackle.
Iheanachor weighed in a 321 pounds and was measured at over 6-foot-5 at the NFL Scouting Combine before the Steelers called and chose him with the No. 21 overall pick of April’s draft.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Did Steelers Land Biggest Steal of 2026 NFL Draft?
