The Steelers’ players will have today off before returning to the practice field tomorrow at 1:55 eastern, the first padded practice of the season. With a small break in the action, I figured now would be a great time to pass out some flowers.

Does the sun seem to be shining a little brighter today? Did you wake up feeling like your problems are a little less important? Like suddenly everything is going to be ok? Football season is back, and the stairway to seven begins, yet again, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

It’s true that the sheer amount of information available to fans and coaches has grown exponentially in the last decade alone, which I think is excellent for the game of football. With that being said, it is sometimes O.K. to overlook what the numbers tell you if your eyeballs are telling you a different story. As is the case with Mr. Patrick Queen. 

News broke earlier this afternoon that the Steelers and T.J. Watt agreed to a three-year contract extension that includes $108M guaranteed, tying him to the team through the 2028 season. Woosah Steelers Nation.

Perhaps he will be asked to play some outside corner for us, especially when Slay and/or JPJ come off the field. Perhaps he will be asked to play a ton outside. Either way, he’s still an extremely capable cover corner, so I’m not worried about it. Here’s him (above) going step-for-step with DK Metcalf with basically no safety help. Geno Smith looked that way, too, but didn’t like what he saw. If you put your average corner in that exact same situation, Geno Smith is throwing that ball and giving DK a chance. This, however, is Jalen Ramsey. 

We could very well look back on this move (really, all the moves we’ve made this offseason) as necessary to preserve the culture as we build around our recent and future draft picks. Also, if you asked me this morning what the team’s biggest needs were, I would’ve said NB, QB, WR. You can go ahead and check NB off that list, for now.

Probably the biggest soundbite that came out of this Aaron Rodgers Tuesday came when Boston Connor asked if this would be Aaron Rodgers last year in the NFL, to which he responded: “Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is it. Ya know, that’s why we just did a one-year deal.”

Alexander was Grady Brown’s assistant with the Steelers in 2022 and 2023, before pursuing an opportunity with the Raiders in 2024. He will return to the Steelers for the 2025 season in a familiar capacity, but with some added responsibility.

According to Derrick Bell from Steelers Now, Elliot’s extension makes him the 30th highest paid safety in the league, which is tremendous value for a guy that performs the way he does on the football field, and also says all the right things about carrying the torch for all the great Steelers that came before him.

Like many NFL teams, the Steelers held their first practice of mandatory minicamp today, which gave us a sneak peak at some of the storylines that figure to dominate our algorithms for the next few weeks as we brace ourselves for training camp.

Even though Will Howard doesn’t have elite arm talent, that doesn’t mean he’s relegated to journeyman QB hell at the NFL level. He’s got a few things going for him that can take his game to the next level if he hones in on them in the NFL; in fact, he stands on two of those things. Howard’s dual-threat-ability can be a forgotten part of his game…but you better keep a spy on that big sumbitch.

After several months of speculation, Aaron Rodgers arrived at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex in Pittsburgh early this morning to sign a one-year deal to play quarterback for the Steelers. The deal includes $10M guaranteed and maxes out at $19.5M if things go well for both sides.

Yahya Black is an awesome pick in the 5th round, and a great addition to our defense against the run. However, he is an early down rotational piece at best, specifically at NT, and we need to remember that as we track his progress this year.

And, we can argue up and down about whether or not the Steelers had the LUXURY of taking him with that pick when they did, but there’s no arguments to be made about the value of the player at 123rd overall.

Johnson showed big-play-ability in 2022 and 2023, but he really gained national popularity in 2024 when he rushed for over 1500 yards, and set the Iowa Hawkeyes’ single-season rushing touchdown record with 21. He also earned First-Team All-Big Ten, and Big Ten RB of the Year honors.

Despite the fact that I’ve been a vocal opponent of the idea of trading Pickens for a while now, even following the acquisition of D.K. Metcalf, I understand why the Steelers chose to make this move. As fans, we have to understand that we’re currently staring down the barrel of Mason Rudolph as our starting QB this season, and George Pickens playing on an expiring contract.

Harmon is a Pittsburgh Steeler through-and-through. I’ve already mentioned his rust belt background, but don’t take it from me; NFL execs feel that way too. Draft analyst Lance Zeirlein quoted an unnamed NFL executive as saying: “He plays like a Raven or a Steeler. Off the tape, he reminds me of a young Cam Heyward but bigger."

I have to say, just from following the draft all weekend, the board seemed to be falling extremely well for the Steelers. I’ll get into the details of that throughout this post, but based on the team’s pre-draft visits and team needs, they pretty much had free reign at a lot of guys they showed quite a bit of interest in.

This is simply a list of the guys that I think are the most likely to become Pittsburgh Steelers next Thursday based on the list of pre-draft visits put out by the team, countless mock drafts, recent news from around the league, and team needs. As I see it, the Steelers’ biggest team needs as of right now are: DL, RB, QB, DB, and WR (depending on who you ask).

So, while it sucks that our current QB1 is Mason Rudolph, we at least have a bit of clarity on what we can expect to happen to our QB room over the next several weeks. It’s alarming to me that we will have completely overhauled our QB room yet again heading into the 2025 season, and it really bolsters the feeling among many fans that this coaching staff is incapable of developing a QB. I’m not ready to call that notion gospel quite yet, but this is something that needs to get figured out in the next two years, or I fear heads may begin to roll, starting with Mike Tomlin.