When the Pittsburgh Steelers are in the dreaded long offseason, there are plenty of ideas to debate. As part of the triumphant trio on the Steelers Preview podcast, I\u2019ve been known to often give a \u201cDave answer\u201c to various things as I often like to argue both sides of an issue. With this in mind, a new weekly segment was born\u2026 Unpopular Opinion.<\/p>\n
There are plenty of arguments both for and against the Pittsburgh Steelers that might not go along with the narratives floating around. Oftentimes I believe in these arguments, while other times I simply like to pose a counter argument for ones that are taking it too much to the extreme. For this reason, I\u2019m going to offer some points about the Pittsburgh Steelers that go against the general fan narrative, or at least how I have heard things.<\/p>\n
Next up is the idea of where to, and not to, draft a wide receiver in 2026..<\/p>\n
If the Steelers don\u2019t go big at wide receiver, they should be patient<\/p>\n
For this week show, the topic came from a listener who reached out to me via X with this week subject. Rather than to miss \u201chim, here are the words themselves from Joe Cirillo:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Steelers shouldn\u2019t look to use a draft pick on a receiver, until the third round (and I would even argue waiting until the 99th overall) unless they plan on moving into the Top 15 via trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cHear me out. While WR is clearly a need, they currently have 2 very highly paid receivers on the roster, along with a still unknown Roman Wilson. Adding another first round receiver means you also need to pay him first round pick money. Outside of the receivers projected in the top 15, there is no receiver that has that \u2018wow factor\u2019 that would make me feel comfortable taking them over other needs (e.g. OG, DB, OT, etc.). The dropoff after that initial run of receivers is relatively large, and taking a WR in the 2nd just because you feel like you need one, when you can get a comparable one later in the draft doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can get a guy like Brenen Thompson later in the third who ran a 4.26 and would fit right into the archetype of a McCarthy-style offense.\u201d<\/p>\n
First, to address the issue of paying the wide receiver \u201cfirst round money,\u201c as long as they\u2019re on a rookie contract I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the end of the world. It\u2019s not really breaking the bank as any rookie contract is typically better than most veteran contracts, especially for the highly sought after players. But still, it is a factor outside of the expensive fifth-year option.<\/p>\n
The first thing to do is to figure out which wide receivers have that \u201cwow factor\u201c. What I decided to do was look at a resource that I\u2019ve used in years past because it\u2019s easy to use, which is cbssports.com for their draft prospect rankings. I like that they can be sorted by position and still give overall ranks.<\/p>\n
Using these rankings, here are the wide receivers who are ranked higher than where the Steelers pick in the first round (the number in parentheses is their overall rank):<\/p>\n
(6) Jordyn Tyson, Arizona St.
(8) Carnell Tate, Ohio State
(17) Omar Cooper Jr., Indiana
(18) Makai Lemon, USC<\/p>\n
First of all, I found the order of these picks very interesting. I thought Tate was the consensus top wide receiver in the draft, but I guess that\u2019s not the case. I was also surprised to see Omar Cooper moving ahead of Makai Lemon.<\/p>\n
Regardless, maybe there\u2019s someone in this group that Joe would not even have in the top four. If this is that top group that he\u2019s talking about, one thing I would consider is if one of these players did fall to the Steelers at 21. I\u2019m not convinced the Steelers would have to move up to the top 15 to get one of these four if you\u2019re looking at all four. If there\u2019s one that you don\u2019t put in that group, then I could see that maybe you would be settling for that player.<\/p>\n
For the sake of Joe\u2019s argument, let\u2019s say all four of these players are gone before the Steelers pick at 21. Let\u2019s see what the list is of receivers that are left in the top 100 overall:<\/p>\n
(31) KC Concepcion, Texas A&M
(34) Denzel Boston, Washington
(44) Germie Bernard, Alabama
(48) Brenen Thompson, Miss. State
(59) Zachariah Branch, Georgia
(62) Chris Brazzell II, Tennessee
(64) Malachi Fields, Notre Dame
(69) Eric McAlister, TCU
(81) Antonio Williams, Clemson
(82) Elijah Sarratt, Indiana<\/p>\n
The question is if all these receivers are kind of grouped together as a \u201csecond tier\u201c or if there are definitely gaps in their abilities. I understand that perhaps there could be one or two that are above the rest and then it would make sense to look at them maybe in the second round for the Steelers. If not, I could completely get on board in waiting until later.<\/p>\n
But how late?<\/p>\n
According to these rankings, Brenen Thompson is not going to be a third-round pick as he wouldn\u2019t even make it to the Steelers second-round pick. If that\u2019s really the case, then the Steelers are going to need to use one of their picks before 99 in order to land a wide receiver unless there\u2019s somebody that they think is going to be available later that they really like.<\/p>\n
To me, I think the Steelers should be patient if they don\u2019t get one of the big wide receivers in the first round. They definitely shouldn\u2019t settle for someone outside of that top four at pick 21. Or at least that\u2019s how I feel. But how long do they wait?<\/p>\n
For me, what I think gives the Steelers the best options with wide receiver is how much draft capital they have in 2026. I think the Steelers should be patient when it comes to drafting a wide receiver, but when the run on receivers begins they need to be willing to move in order to get one. As long as the Steelers are willing to do this, I\u2019m all for patience.<\/p>\n
As for things playing out exactly how Joe was discussing, I don\u2019t know that\u2019s how the draft is going to fall. The fact his example of a third round wide receiver is in the top 50 according to CBS Sports, it makes me think that having wide receiver in the second round off the table is too much of a stretch.<\/p>\n
Still, I think patience is the key in this situation if the Steelers aren\u2019t taking a wide receiver with their first pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n
To hear the latest Unpopular Opinion podcast, check it out in the player below. Thank you for checking out this podcast most every Sunday morning during the Steelers offseason.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Pittsburgh Steelers are in the dreaded long offseason, there are plenty of ideas to debate. As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,6,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-855174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-pittsburgh","11":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","12":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","13":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116352536420564590","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855174","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=855174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}