There are not many definitive statements that leave the pre-role press conference of the NFL team, and the Steelers have historically been very kept to reveal much about their process or their intentions. But a few days earlier, halfway through their press conference before 1025, the director general Omar Khan drew a line in the sand with regard to their 21st choice in total as part of a package which would allow the team to recover the second round choice which he used in the trade to bring DK Metcalf to the city.
“I think the key, the way I look at it is that you never really want to exchange a very good player who can help you and is the right guy for us,” said Khan. “As we arrive on Thursday, we have identified some guys from which we will not exchange.”
The defensive platform of Oregon, Derrick Harmon, was one of those guys. He was so one of those guys that even before the n ° 1 choice of Denver – 20th in the general classification and the one who immediately preceded the Steelers – was announced on television, a joy could be heard from the area of the Bill Nunn recovery room.
“The other day, when we met, we talked about some guys we would not exchange, and that is one of these players for us,” said Khan. “We were working on the phones several choices before ours. You listen. You have to do it. We have to listen to, and you don’t know how it’s going to shake five or six choices in advance. You listen and weigh things, but at the end of the day, he was one of those players that we were not going to exchange.”
As for the way in which the upper part of the first round took place and how it was most likely what allowed the Steelers to have a chance to select Harmon, it had to do with the quarters.
In the 25 projects carried out from 2000 to 2024, the quarter-backs were the first global choice 18 times, and when Cam Ward was selected n ° 1 in total by Tennessee Thursday evening, which did 19 times in the 26 projects this century. But then things changed, and in a better described way as weird.
The draft of NFL 2024 only marked the fourth time since the League had the idea of an annual selection meeting in 1936 that the first three choices of Round 1 had been quarters. In 1971, it was Jim Plunkett, Archie Manning and Dan Pastorini; In 1999, it was Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb and Akili Smith; In 2021, it was Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson and Trey Lance; And in 2024, it was Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye. But after Ward went to the Titans, the teams making the following 24 choices remained away from the quarters as spicy food before bedtime.
Before Jaxson Dart was made the 25th overall selection by the new york giants, who traded back up the first round to grab him after having made lb abdul Carter the third overall pick, 2 defensive tackles from Michigan (Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant) Were Taken, 2 defensive ends From Georgia (Mykel Williams and Jalon Walker) WERE TAKEN, and Two Players from Each of the LESSER POSTOS OF TIGHT END (COLSTON Loveland and Tyler WARREN), La Garde (Tyler Booker and Gray Zabel) and the ball carrier (Ashton Jeanty and Omarion Hampton) were taken.
No one saw this to come, just as no one expected the NFL to delay the announcement of the choice of the Bears – 10th in total – to use the scene to Green Bay to tell the world that the calendar of the regular season of 2025 would be revealed on Wednesday May 14. Unexpected because the league generally protects the identity of this date as if it were the social security number of Commissioner Roger Goodell.
But one Thursday evening in Green Bay, it simply corresponds to the theme of Store The Unexpected.
So, in any case, this convergence of events revealed that the Steelers were looking at a player that their evaluation convinced them was one of the best available in a major need. Harmon (6 feet 5 inches, 310 pounds) finished his third collegial season at the age of 21 who finished with 105 plated for the loss, 5 bags, 4 defensive passes, 2 forced escapes and 2 escaped recovery. His potential to be an interior defensive line of all the stockings was flashed when he had a 95.0 defense note in a victory over Ohio State, and he associated this with a Pass-Rush note of 86.3 during a season when the Ducks finished 13-1. In terms of skills on the ground, Harmon is similar to Stephon Tuitt which was the n ° 2 choice of Pittsburgh in the draft of the 2014 NFL and finished with 48 plated for the loss, 34.5 bags, 94 strokes on the pasts of the quarter-back 13 and 6 forced smokes during 91 career games with the Steelers.
Because the Steelers had used premium choices (first three laps) only 5 times in the 14 previous projects on defensive line players, their depth board was thin there and needs an injection of young talents with Cam Heyward soon to celebrate its 36th anniversary.
“The extreme urgency of being completely honest with you,” is the way coach Mike Tomlin has evaluated the need for Steelers to add to the defensive line. “There is no substitute for young talents. You do not have the opportunity to set up a quality defense unless you are robust in advance. (Harmon) is a guy who has the opportunity to watch Cam Hayward and put his hand in this battery and be an important contributor for years to come.”
And it would be better to start the “years to come” calendar during the regular season of 2025, because a contributor to the 5 match game sequence at the end of the 2024 season was the defense of Soft Run.
“Guy, it was the first thing that was my thought process after the call (from Tomlin), that I was going to be able to choose Cam’s brain, to be under his wing,” said Harmon. “That he could be my veterinarian now, and I can really learn from him, because he has always done this, since I was a baby. So I don’t want it to be otherwise, really.”
What appealed to the opportunity is that Tiffany Saine, Harmon’s mother, was hospitalized when Derrick learned that his dream of playing in the NFL had come true.
“It was a little soft-to-man; my mother was not with me,” said Harmon. “She is at the hospital at the moment on Life Support, so it was a little soft-man, because she worked as hard as I am to arrive at this moment, but it was always a unique experience. So, as I said, I am very excited.
“How resilient she was (helped me arrive at this time). I grew up with her probably having seven, eight brain surgeries. And after all these brain surgeries, she did not give up. She always took me to train, has always been working. And I always had it at the back of my head since the start of my university career – why I can’t continue to go if I am injuring myself or injuring myself.
“After leaving the phone with you, I head directly to the hospital and told him that his son was drafted.”
