Getting to Know Steelers DL Yahya Black
via Next Gen Stats
I want to lead this post by reminding yinz that on January 11th, 2025, the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers played a Wild Card playoff game in which Derrick Henry had 26 carries for 186 yards and 2 TDs. The Ravens finished with 299 rushing yards as a team, which is now their franchise record in a playoff game. I just want to make sure that’s fresh in the minds of all readers, because I can assure you it was fresh in the minds of Mike Tomlin and Omar Khan when they selected Yahya Black, DL from Iowa, 164th overall in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Fun Fact: This is also my 164th post on this platform.
Yahya (pronounced why-yay) Black grew up in Marshall, Minnesota where he attended Marshall High School and played offensive and defensive line for the Tigers football team. He was a three-star recruit, and wound up signing with the Iowa Hawkeyes in June of 2019. He really broke out in 2023 when he started all 14 games for Iowa and had 51 tackles, 5 PBUs, 5 TFLs, and 3.5 sacks. He also started all 13 games for Iowa in 2024, and his stats were fairly comparable to his previous season.
Of all the college players I’ve followed this offseason, I think the two Iowa guys that the Steelers drafted were probably two of the easiest “evaluations” I’ve had. I use that term loosely because I am no expert; just a big fan. Kaleb Johnson was easy, because he jumped off the film like stars do, and because he has traits that I think are uncoachable. Yahya Black was even easier, because he just is what he is and he is that consistently. This dude is a mack truck: massive hands, 7-foot wingspan, 330+ lbs.; just a mammoth of a human. He chews up and spits out one-on-one blockers against the run, and has the size to take on double teams. When you think about the talent that already exists on the Steelers’ defense, you can see how someone with those traits can immediately help us out, even if he’s slow and his technique is sloppy. The Steelers were looking to muddy up that interior defensive line this offseason, and I think they hit the nail on the head in that regard.
This is it, right here. Iowa Hawkeyes football with Kaleb Johnson and Yahya Black in 2024: run the ball, stop the run. Pittsburgh Steelers football with Kaleb Johnson and Yahya Black in 2025: run the ball, stop the run. This play (above) went for no gain. You can tell the idea here for UCLA was to have Black double teamed, but the play was too slow to develop, and this guy is too damn big, and he makes them pay.
This was a fun game to continually come back to this offseason, even though it was an ass beating. The Iowa Hawkeyes traveled to Ohio State back on October 5th, 2024, and a lot of guys that were VERY high on the Steelers’ radar made some big plays in this game; this (above) being one of them. At this point, it’s a close ball game, 7-0 Ohio State, but Steelers rookie QB Will Howard (whose ‘getting to know’ post is coming next) has been picking apart Iowa’s secondary. Ohio State elects to go for it on 4th & 2, which is the play you see above. This is just a designed QB run for the big bodied Will Howard, and Yahya Black is the first guy there to help bring him down for the stop and a turnover on downs. Even though the final score of this game was 35-7, this was a massive play in the game at the time that it happened. This is some impressive stuff against the run. He’s able to anchor down and use that MASSIVE wingspan to see around Ohio State’s LG to determine which gap Will Howard wants to take. Once Howard sticks his foot in the ground to make that cut, Black just deletes that guard and makes the play. As long as he’s not caught flat-footed, you’re going to have a tough time blocking this guy one-on-one.
I’ve said a lot of nice things about Yahya Black in this post, and they’re all true. I LOVE the idea of this guy being a space eater against the run for the Pittsburgh Steelers defense. However, he was a 5th round pick for a reason, and that reason is that we really shouldn’t expect anything from him as a pass rusher. I’ve watched a whole lot of Iowa football games this offseason, and one thing I’ve noticed in all of them is that Yahya Black has a propensity to bail out of his pass rushes early and opt to just try and bat down balls at the line of scrimmage; ESPECIALLY late in games. I’m not sure if it’s a matter of conditioning, or him just trying to affect the game in different ways because he rarely wins as a pass rusher. Whatever the case, his tape is littered with reps of him literally standing straight up at the snap and looking to swat for the ball before he has even attempted to get by his blocker(s). He was able to bat down 5 balls in 2023, but only 2 in 2024, so he’s not going to see a lot of 2nd or 3rd and longs with that kind of production. 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.
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