{"id":775499,"date":"2026-02-25T13:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T13:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/775499\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T13:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T13:42:16","slug":"is-this-finally-the-year-the-steelers-fix-their-wrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/775499\/","title":{"rendered":"Is This Finally the Year the Steelers Fix Their WRs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

NFL Combine<\/a>\u2022Steelers Commentary<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers general manger Omar Khan on Jan. 27, 2026. — Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 After basically ignoring the wide receiver position for most of his first three offseasons while undertaking a massive rebuild of the team\u2019s trenches, 2026 will be the year that Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Omar Khan <\/a>finally turns his attention to players on the perimeter, right?<\/p>\n

Right?<\/a><\/p>\n

It has seemed to be trending that way. After Khan and right-hand man Andy Weidl drafted five offensive linemen, four defensive linemen and two edge rushers in their first three draft classes, most of the hype surrounding the Steelers\u2019 selections in the 2026 NFL Draft <\/a>have been at the wide receiver position.<\/p>\n

And with good reason.<\/p>\n

Khan\u2019s first few efforts into building a wide receiver room have not gone well. The Steelers had George Pickens<\/a> and Diontae Johnson<\/a> in place for Khan\u2019s first two seasons as the Pittsburgh general manager.<\/p>\n

In the 2024 offseason, Khan traded Johnson to the Carolina Panthers for cornerback Donte Jackson, and was never able to replace Johnson in the team\u2019s lineup. Khan spent most of the offseason pursuing San Francisco 49ers star Brandon Aiyuk<\/a>, only to end up empty-handed when Aiyuk made the last-minute decision to return to San Francisco.<\/p>\n

The Steelers\u2019 passing game struggled, and when Pickens was injured late in the season, it collapsed entirely, with the team losing five straight games to close the 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers wide receiver DK Metcalf in a game against the Houston Texans on Jan. 12, 2026. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n

This past offseason, it was more of the same. The Steelers traded a second-round pick for Seattle Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf,<\/a> but they sent Pickens to Dallas for a 2026 third-rounder, once again going into the season with just one proven performer at wide receiver.<\/p>\n

And once again, that player was unavailable during a key stretch of the season, with Metcalf getting himself suspended for the Steelers\u2019 final two regular-season games, including a near-crippling loss to the Cleveland Browns in Week 17,<\/a> during which Aaron Rodgers<\/a> threw for just 184 yards.<\/p>\n

Metcalf is under contract for two more seasons, so the Steelers have one of their wide receiver spots locked up, and after doing plenty of work on the trenches over the last three seasons, this seems like a year that Khan should finally be investing in wide receiver in the 2026 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n

But he wasn\u2019t exactly putting that message out there in his first media availability of the offseason at the 2026 NFL Combine<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Khan was asked if the consecutive seasons of having his one and only legitimate wide receiver go unavailable during the stretch run of the season had increased the urgency for the team to add to the position this offseason, and, well, he really didn\u2019t give much of an answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot just the receiver room,\u201d he said. \u201cWe weren\u2019t good enough. We didn\u2019t win a playoff game. We didn\u2019t reach our goals. So every position group needs looked at and improved. If it\u2019s not good enough, we\u2019ve got to be better at all those groups.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Certainly, wide receiver isn\u2019t the only position that needs help in the 2026 NFL Draft, but come on. I finally got him to crack a little bit when I asked whether he considered the trenches-first era of the team\u2019s rebuild to largely be over at this point, considering the previous investments made.<\/p>\n

Even then, he was far from demonstrative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to stand here and say yes, but I just know when I get closer to the draft and we see some of those positions in the trenches, and some good players that we probably aren\u2019t going to shy away from them if they\u2019re good players,\u201d Khan said.<\/p>\n

And yes, the Steelers could certainly use a left guard and one more defensive tackle before it\u2019s safe to call their trenches rebuild completely complete, but after the abject failures of the last two offseasons to address the wide receiver position, and a huge amount of talent available to the team, and resources with which to land it, there\u2019s really no excuse for this not to be the year that Khan finally embraces the position.<\/p>\n

The Steelers have the eighth-most salary cap space in the entire league. There are at least a half-dozen legitimate starting receivers scheduled to hit free agency right now, including Mike Evans, Romeo Doubs, Jauan Jennings, Tyreek Hill, Christian Kirk, Alec Pierce, Wan\u2019dale Robinson and Deebo Samuel.<\/p>\n

The 2026 NFL Draft class is unusually deep and talented. In the NFL Mock Draft Database consensus big board, there are five wide receivers in the top 25 players, 10 in the top 52 and 17 in the top 100. Considering there are roughly 11 position groups (eliminating fullback and specialists), you\u2019d expect a position to account for about 9% of any tranche of draft prospects. The top of this class has nearly double that at wide receiver.<\/p>\n

This has to be the year that Khan pivots from the trenches to the perimeter, and finally fixes the wide receiver problems that he\u2019s created.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: 2026 NFL Draft<\/a> DK Metcalf<\/a> NFL Combine<\/a> Omar Khan<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NFL Combine\u2022Steelers Commentary Pittsburgh Steelers general manger Omar Khan on Jan. 27, 2026. — Ed Thompson \/ Steelers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[4955,2870,7,6,927,1256,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-775499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-dk-metcalf","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-nfl-combine","13":"tag-omar-khan","14":"tag-pittsburgh","15":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","16":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","17":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116131566364580480","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775499","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=775499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}