April 6, 2026, 6:36 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
The Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> are one of the most storied franchises in all of sports, and that clearly isn’t lost on one of their former players<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to former Steelers<\/a> offensive lineman Derwin Gray, playing for Pittsburgh was an experience like no other \u2014 ranking at the very top of his former teams list.<\/p>\n “Pittsburgh was the best team I ever played for. And it still is today,\u201d Gray said via The Katie Black Show<\/a>. \u201cPittsburgh is the best organization. It had a lot of veteran people there. When I say veteran, not just veterans on the field, but veterans off the field.”<\/p>\n Gray, who was selected by the Steelers with the 219th overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, was waived his rookie year in August to make room for the 53-man roster. He joined the Steelers’ practice squad soon after and signed a reserve\/future deal on December 30.<\/p>\n He appeared in five games during his second season in the league but was waived on December 26, 2020. Gray signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars two days later.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n Gray spent his last two seasons in the league with the Tennessee Titans (2021-2022) before joining the United States Football League’s Birmingham Stallions in December 2022. He left the Stallions in February 2025 to join the Canadian Football League’s BC Lions.<\/p>\n Despite spending only two seasons with Pittsburgh, Gray was clearly touched by the Steeler way and isn’t shy about expressing his gratitude for the Steel City brand of football.<\/p>\n For up-to-date\u00a0Steelers\u00a0coverage, including any offseason moves, follow us on X\u00a0@TheSteelersWire<\/a>\u00a0and give our\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0a like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 6, 2026, 6:36 p.m. ET The Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the most storied franchises in all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[95878,7,6,520,57,2360,96718,96719,426,95882,117086,97975,95893,95896,95888,95906,96721,96720,96071,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-858485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-sstssportsnflsteelers","15":"tag-sstsnsteelers","16":"tag-steelers","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagbc-lions","19":"tag-tagcanadian-football-league","20":"tag-tagfacebook","21":"tag-tagnational-sports","22":"tag-tagnfl","23":"tag-tagoverall-positive","24":"tag-tagpittsburgh","25":"tag-tagpittsburgh-steelers","26":"tag-tagsmg-timely","27":"tag-tagsports-news","28":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116362394447025797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858485","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=858485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}