{"id":935303,"date":"2026-07-03T06:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T06:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/935303\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T06:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T06:03:12","slug":"steelers-eli-heidenreich-was-going-to-sign-with-buccaneers-after-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/935303\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers’ Eli Heidenreich was going to sign with Buccaneers after draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated July 2, 2026, 11:33 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

One of the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a>\u2019 most beloved rookies from the 2026 NFL Draft class<\/a> was apparently on his way to a different team if he wasn\u2019t selected on Day 3 of the event.<\/p>\n

On a new episode of The Christian Kuntz Podcast<\/a>, Steelers<\/a> seventh-round rookie Eli Heidenreich revealed that he was set to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> as an undrafted free agent before he was drafted by Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy agent was talking to Tampa Bay, and I agreed that I would sign with them in preferred free agency,\u201d Heidenreich said. \u201cSo, I was kind of set there, and now I was sitting, and all of a sudden, I got that phone call, and I pick up, and it was Omar [Khan].\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily for Steelers Nation, Heidenreich wouldn\u2019t go undrafted and was selected by Pittsburgh with the 230th overall pick in the seventh round of the 2026 NFL Draft. To make the moment even sweeter, Heidenreich was in attendance at the draft and made a rare Day 3 walk onto the stage surrounded by the deafening support of Steelers fans.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/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

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated July 2, 2026, 11:33 p.m. ET One of the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 most beloved rookies from the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[95878,7,6,15,119737,96718,96719,95882,95893,95896,95888,95895,95899,118065,96720,96071,95883,96239,95881],"class_list":["post-935303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-draft","tag-accessfree","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-draft","tag-sourcesteelers-wire","tag-sstssportsnflsteelers","tag-sstsnsteelers","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagfacebook","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagpittsburgh-connect","tag-tagpittsburgh-steelers","tag-tagsmg-timely","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116854535191657339","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935303","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=935303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}