{"id":96004,"date":"2025-06-01T16:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T16:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/96004\/"},"modified":"2025-06-01T16:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T16:03:09","slug":"nfl-insider-offers-theory-why-steelers-passed-on-qb-shedeur-sanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/96004\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Insider Offers Theory Why Steelers Passed On QB Shedeur Sanders"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a 10-3 start, the Pittsburgh Steelers lost their last four regular season games before bowing out in the Wild Card Round to the Baltimore Ravens. One of the biggest reasons for the team\u2019s struggles was a dip in play from quarterback Russell Wilson, a player that head coach Mike Tomlin went \u201clone ranger\u201d<\/a> on to make the starter after he missed the first six games of the season and Justin Fields led the Steelers to a 4-2 record. Appearing on The Bill Simmons Podcast<\/a>, NFL insider Albert Breer said that after how things went down with Wilson, Tomlin may not have wanted to push for QB Shedeur Sanders, a player he liked during the pre-draft process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people there would tell you that the Russell Wilson thing undermined so many things in the last month of the season, and a lot of that building really wanted them to go back to Justin Fields. And it was something where Tomlin was kind of again, all on his own on that one. And I think it\u2019s part of the reason why, Tomlin liked Shedeur [Sanders] going into the draft. But I don\u2019t think Tomlin wanted to press that button again at quarterback after what happened at the end of the year with Russell,\u201d Breer said.<\/p>\n

There was a lot of speculation that some people in Pittsburgh\u2019s building were open to turning back to Fields, who played a limited role off the bench, late in the season with Wilson struggling, but Tomlin stuck with Wilson. After the five-game losing streak, retaining Wilson seemed unlikely and he ultimately signed with the New York Giants, with Pittsburgh turning over their quarterback room for the second offseason in a row.<\/p>\n

Sanders came in for a pre-draft visit with Pittsburgh and Tomlin praised his toughness and intangibles. There was some buzz that Pittsburgh could take him in the first round, but he ultimately fell all the way to the fifth round before being selected by the Cleveland Browns. Pittsburgh had multiple opportunities to draft Sanders, but instead selected DL Derrick Harmon, RB Kaleb Johnson and EDGE Jack Sawyer. The team did take QB Will Howard in the sixth-round, but with Breer\u2019s theory, there\u2019s a case to be made that the Steelers could\u2019ve considered taking Sanders higher had Tomlin pushed for him more.<\/p>\n

Initially, the move to start Wilson looked sound, as he led the Steelers to four straight wins and won six out of his first seven starts. But things went sideways down the stretch, and it would make sense if Tomlin didn\u2019t want to stick his neck out for another quarterback after the disastrous ending of the season, and ultimately Wilson\u2019s tenure in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

The Steelers still don\u2019t have a clear answer at quarterback for 2025, and drafting Shedeur Sanders still likely wouldn\u2019t have given them one. But it\u2019s interesting to note that Tomlin was a fan of the quarterback who now plays for Pittsburgh\u2019s division rival, and that if things didn\u2019t turn sour with Wilson, he could\u2019ve pushed to make him Pittsburgh\u2019s next signal-caller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a 10-3 start, the Pittsburgh Steelers lost their last four regular season games before bowing out in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7453,7,1255,6,15,572,17,25225,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-96004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-albert-breer","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-mike-tomlin","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-nfl-draft","13":"tag-russell-wilson","14":"tag-shedeur-sanders","15":"tag-the-bill-simmons-podcast","16":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114608957310533145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96004","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=96004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}