{"id":230218,"date":"2025-07-23T17:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T17:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/230218\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T17:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T17:30:09","slug":"steelers-tried-trading-up-for-ohio-state-star-in-2025-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/230218\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers Tried Trading Up For Ohio State Star in 2025 NFL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"PittsburghJack Sawyer, Ohio State Athletics\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Pittsburgh Steelers surprisingly drafted star Ohio State edge rusher Jack Sawyer<\/a> in the fourth round (No. 123 overall) of the 2025 NFL Draft. However, Sawyer revealed the Steelers almost landed him a lot sooner as they were trying to execute a trade-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard I was going day two regardless, so I was thinking round two or three and that obviously didn\u2019t happen.\u201d\u00a0Sawyer said on Not Just Football with Cam Heyward.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cI woke up like an hour before day three started and my agent is calling me telling me the Steelers are trying to trade up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Luckily, Pittsburgh was still able to land Sawyer, who came at a great value ranked as the No. 67 overall player on the\u00a0NFL Mock Draft Database<\/a>\u00a0consensus big board.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-4, 260-pound defender recorded 59 tackles (25 solo), nine sacks, three forced fumbles, one interception and six passes defensed while leading the Buckeyes to win the\u00a02025 College Football Playoff National Championship.<\/p>\n

He was also named the Cotton Bowl defensive MVP after strip sacking Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers and returning it for a 83-yard touchdown to seal the game.<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghJack Sawyer, Ohio State Athletics<\/p>\n

However, it was still a surprising pick with the Steelers outside linebacker room already loaded with the likes of T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith and Nick Herbig.<\/p>\n

Many believe Sawyer could get lost in the shuffle as a result, but he is solely focused on helping the team in any way he can.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just so excited to add value anywhere I can,\u201d\u00a0he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sawyer will likely start by helping to fill the void left by veteran Preston Smith, who served as Pittsburgh\u2019s fourth edge rusher in 2024.<\/p>\n

In four seasons at Ohio State, Sawyer registered 144 tackles (68 solo), 23 sacks, six forced fumbles, one interception and 10 passes defensed.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: Jack Sawyer<\/a> Ohio State<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers News Jack Sawyer, Ohio State Athletics The Pittsburgh Steelers surprisingly drafted star Ohio State edge rusher Jack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,295,6,15,1446,57,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-230218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jack-sawyer","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-draft","12":"tag-ohio-state","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","14":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114903739560824154","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}