{"id":381647,"date":"2025-09-20T01:20:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T01:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/381647\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T01:20:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T01:20:14","slug":"brown-about-that-2026-nfl-draft-qb-class-steelers-will-be-scrutinizing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/381647\/","title":{"rendered":"Brown: About That 2026 NFL Draft QB Class Steelers Will Be Scrutinizing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers can\u2019t stop the run or run the ball. Given their DNA<\/a> (and six Super Bowl titles), that is as sad as Frank Sinatra forgetting how to sing.<\/p>\n

And as shocking as Albert Einstein flunking algebra.<\/p>\n

If things aren\u2019t bad enough in Tomlinville, what appears to be the Steelers\u2019 grand plan at quarterback ain\u2019t looking so grand.<\/p>\n

They are sitting on a mountain of 2026 draft capital. The smart money has them expending<\/a> whatever of it is needed to move up in the first round and select the rightful heir to Ben Roethlisberger.<\/p>\n

The problem is that timing appears to be flipping them the bird.<\/p>\n

As meh as the 2025 NFL Draft QB class was \u2013 it is best known for the Shedeur Sanders circus until further notice \u2013 next year isn\u2019t exactly shaping up as a repeat of 1983<\/a>. Or 2004.<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 Arch Manning completed 44 percent of his passes<\/a> last Saturday against UTEP. Those boos he heard while walking off the field at halftime weren\u2019t for the Longhorns\u2019 drum major. Turns out it takes more than a surname to beat a Cover 2.<\/p>\n

Clemson is 1-2 largely because Cade Klubnik has also not lived up to his preseason billing. Like Manning, he makes the occasional wow throw. But he lost a fumble and threw a bad interception in the Tigers\u2019 loss at Georgia Tech last Saturday.<\/p>\n

Klubnik has the size and the arm and requisite recruiting stars that entice NFL teams, but he has yet to put it all together. The same can be said of Penn State\u2019s Drew Allar.<\/p>\n

He threw a critical interception in the Nittany Lions\u2019 College Football Playoffs semifinal loss to Notre Dame last January, again shrinking on a big stage. Allar has since underwhelmed against the Murderer\u2019s Row, also known as Nevada, Florida International and Villanova. Next Saturday night against visiting Oregon will be telling.<\/p>\n

LSU is one of the early stories of the year in college football after big wins against Clemson and Florida, but Garrett Nussmeier has been more passenger than driver of the Tigers\u2019 success.<\/p>\n

Manning (if he declares), Klubnik, Allar and Nussmeier are far from the only QBs in the 2026 draft class. They are emblematic of why it doesn\u2019t look nearly as good as it did a mere three weeks ago.<\/p>\n

The good news for the Steelers is that so much can change from now until late April.<\/p>\n

Maybe Carson Beck fully rehabilitates his once-high draft stock at Miami (FL) after Georgia did not exactly call in the state National Guard to stop him from transferring.<\/p>\n

Maybe South Carolina\u2019s LaNorris Sellers emerges as a clear-cut first-round pick. The talented dual-threat QB completed six of his seven passes last Saturday before getting knocked out of the game with a concussion. Without Sellers, the 11th-ranked Gamecocks got demolished by Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n

Maybe Oklahoma\u2019s John Mateer\u2019s ascent turns into a meteoric rise. Not Joe Burrow\u2019s meteoric rise, but something like that. Same with Indiana\u2019s Fernando Mendoza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, it can go the other way, too.<\/p>\n

A year ago, Nico Iamaleava looked like a future first-round pick. He tried to play NIL hardball at the worst time, and Tennessee told him to get lost.<\/p>\n

He has done just that since transferring to UCLA. The Bruins are 0-3 and just fired their head coach after a 35-10 loss to New Mexico. Iamaleava has three touchdown passes and three interceptions.<\/p>\n

He will have a lot of explaining to do when it is his time to go through the pre-draft process.<\/p>\n

All NFL hopefuls do, but none more so than quarterbacks. It is the most important position in professional sports \u2013 in part because it is so hard to project who will succeed in the NFL.<\/p>\n

Impossibly hard if you are the Fightin\u2019 Jimmy Haslams.<\/p>\n

But the reality is that the Steelers probably won\u2019t be in a better position to draft the QB<\/a> they want next April anytime soon, especially since they won\u2019t rebuild unless one is forced on them.<\/p>\n

They just better hope tomorrow\u2019s NFL franchise QBs have simply been slow to reveal themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers can\u2019t stop the run or run the ball. Given their DNA (and six Super Bowl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4955,615,5385,2037,1800,3619,7,1802,15709,9734,6,15,1439,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-381647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-arch-manning","10":"tag-cade-klubnik","11":"tag-carson-beck","12":"tag-drew-allar","13":"tag-fernando-mendoza","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-garrett-nussmeier","16":"tag-john-mateer","17":"tag-lanorris-sellers","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-nfl-draft","20":"tag-nico-iamaleava","21":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115234001686870856","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381647","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=381647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}