{"id":848679,"date":"2026-04-02T05:53:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T05:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/848679\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T05:53:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T05:53:19","slug":"ray-fittipaldo-identifies-steelers-ot-sweet-spot-in-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/848679\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Fittipaldo Identifies Steelers\u2019 OT \u2018Sweet Spot\u2019 In NFL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though Pittsburgh Steelers GM Omar Khan delivered some good news Monday<\/a> regarding Broderick Jones at the NFL owners meetings in Arizona, the left tackle position \u2014 and the left side of the offensive line in general \u2014 remains a bit of a question for 2026.<\/p>\n

The loss of Isaac Seumalo in free agency hurts, and even when Jones was fully healthy he wasn\u2019t playing as well as many hoped or expected, leading to questions about his fifth-year option.<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019 health situation clouds things as he recovers from reported spinal-fusion surgery after suffering a season-ending neck injury in Week 12 against the Chicago Bears. The Steelers didn\u2019t sign an offensive tackle in free agency, and they cut veteran swing tackle Calvin Anderson<\/a>, so the position remains a need.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve hosted some offensive tackle prospects for pre-draft visits, so the is interest there. For the Post-Gazette\u2019s Ray Fittipaldo, the sweet spot for the Steelers drafting an offensive tackle comes in the round they have the most picks, that being the third round.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve met with some guys at the Combine and they brought in some guys for top-30 visits who are in that Day 2 range, that second- and third-round range. So that would make sense,\u201d Fittipaldo said of the Steelers\u2019 OT draft interest, according to video via 93.7 The Fan.<\/a> \u201cLet\u2019s say Broderick is healthy and that\u2019s the best-case scenario. Broderick comes back, then you get a developmental tackle that you need, right? \u2018Cause you lost Calvin Anderson to that knee injury and you had to cut him. He wasn\u2019t gonna be available or healthy until October or November. So you need that swing tackle. And I think Dylan Cook is a really interesting prospect, but it\u2019s hard to view a guy like that as like the next guy when he\u2019s 28 years old, right? It\u2019s taken him a while to develop. You did really well in that short amount of time. I\u2019m intrigued by it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want there to be a competition there. So third round would be the perfect spot. You got three picks there. I would not be surprised at all if one of those was made on a tackle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the Steelers\u2019 three third-round picks, one was acquired in the George Pickens trade, while another was a compensatory pick awarded to them<\/a> for losing Dan Moore Jr. in free agency last offseason to the Tennessee Titans.<\/p>\n

Now, they could potentially use that compensatory pick to land a developmental swing tackle.<\/p>\n

The Steelers have shown some interest in offensive tackles like Miami (FL)\u2019s Markel Bell and Memphis\u2019 Travis Burke<\/a>, both of whom project as Day 2 selections and likely in the third round. Both are hulking figures standing 6-8 or taller, and both have long arms, but are rather raw.<\/p>\n

The Steelers are counting on new offensive line coaches James Campen and Jahri Evans to further the development of players already in place while building up the next wave of offensive linemen too. That could be a developmental swing tackle the Steelers have looked at during the pre-draft process or a plug-and-play starter in the first round like Penn State\u2019s Olaivavega Ioane, whom the Steelers have been connected to in recent weeks.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see how things shake out, but based on pre-draft movement from the Steelers, the third round is shaping up to be the likeliest spot the franchise adds an offensive lineman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though Pittsburgh Steelers GM Omar Khan delivered some good news Monday regarding Broderick Jones at the NFL owners…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[8740,465,7,11379,103364,6,1256,520,57,2360,7827,426,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-848679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-93-7-the-fan","9":"tag-broderick-jones","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-jahri-evans","12":"tag-james-campen","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-omar-khan","15":"tag-pittsburgh","16":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","17":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","18":"tag-ray-fittipaldo","19":"tag-steelers","20":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116333565739606178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848679","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=848679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}