There are not a lot of definitive statements that come out of any NFL team’s pre-draft news conference, and the Steelers historically have been quite guarded about revealing much about their process or their intentions. But a couple of days earlier, midway through their 2025 pre-draft news conference, General Manager Omar Khan drew a line in the sand when it came to dangling their 21st overall pick as part of a package that would allow the team to recoup the second-round choice it used in the trade to bring DK Metcalf to town.
“I think the key, the way I look at it, is you never really want to trade away from a really good player who can help you and is the right guy for us,” said Khan. “By the time we get to Thursday, we’ll have identified certain guys that we will not trade away from.”
Oregon defensive tackle Derrick Harmon was one of those guys. He was so much one of those guys that even before Denver’s No. 1 pick – 20th overall and the one immediately preceding the Steelers’ – was announced on television a cheer could be heard coming from the area of the Bill Nunn Draft Room.
“The other day when we met, we talked about certain guys that we would not trade away from, and this is one of those players for us,” said Khan. “We were working the phones several picks before ours. You listen. You have to. We owe it to ourselves to listen, and you don’t know how it’s go to shake out five or six picks ahead. You listen and weigh things, but at the end of the day, he was one of those players we were not going to trade away from.”
As for how the top part of the first round unfolded and how that quite possibly was what allowed the Steelers to have a chance to select Harmon, it had to do with the quarterbacks.
In the 25 drafts conducted from 2000-2024, quarterbacks were the first overall pick 18 times, and when Cam Ward was selected No. 1 overall by Tennessee on Thursday night that made it 19 times in the 26 drafts this century. But then things changed, and in ways best described as weird.
The 2024 NFL Draft had marked just the fourth time since the league came up with the idea of an Annual Selection Meeting in 1936 that the first three picks in Round 1 had been quarterbacks. 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 next 24 picks stayed away from quarterbacks like spicy food before bedtime.
Before Jaxson Dart was made the 25th overall selection by the New York Giants, who traded back up into 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 regarded positions of tight end (Colston Loveland and Tyler Warren), guard (Tyler Booker and Grey Zabel) and running back (Ashton Jeanty and Omarion Hampton) were taken.
No one saw that coming, just as nobody expected the NFL to delay the announcement of the Bears pick – 10th overall – to use the stage in Green Bay to tell the world that the 2025 regular season schedule would be revealed on Wednesday, May 14. Unexpected because the league usually protects the identity of that date as if it were Commissioner Roger Goodell’s social security number.
But on a Thursday night in Green Bay, it just fit the theme of expect the unexpected.
So anyway, this convergence of events found the Steelers staring at a player their evaluation convinced them was one of the best available at a position of significant need. Harmon (6-foot-5, 310 pounds) completed his third college season as a 21-year-old who finished with 105 tackles-for-loss, 5 sacks, 4 passes defensed, 2 forced fumbles, and 2 fumble recoveries. His potential to be an every-down interior defensive lineman was flashed when he had a 95.0 run-defense grade in a win over Ohio State, and he paired that with an 86.3 overall pass-rush grade during a season when the Ducks finished 13-1. In terms of an on-field skill-set, Harmon is similar to Stephon Tuitt who was Pittsburgh’s No. 2 pick in the 2014 NFL Draft and finished with 48 tackles for loss, 34.5 sacks, 94 hits on the quarterback 13 passes defensed, and 6 forced fumbles in 91 career games with the Steelers.
Because the Steelers had used premium picks (first three rounds) just 5 times in the previous 14 drafts on defensive linemen, their depth chart was thin there and in need of an injection of young talent with Cam Heyward soon to celebrate his 36th birthday.
“Extreme urgency to be quite honest with you,” is the way Coach Mike Tomlin assessed the Steelers’ need to add to the defensive line. “There’s no substitute for young talent. You don’t have a chance to field a quality defense unless you’re stout up front. (Harmon) is a guy who has the opportunity to look toward the likes of Cam Hayward and put his hand in that pile and be a significant contributor for years to come.”
And it would be best for that “years to come” timetable to begin during the 2025 regular season, because a contributor to the 5-game losing streak at the end of the 2024 season was soft run defense.
“Man, that was the first thing that was my thought process after the call (from Tomlin), that I was going to be able to pick Cam’s brain, be under his wing,” said Harmon. “That he could be my vet now, and I can really learn from him, because he’s been doing this forever, since I was a baby. So I wouldn’t want it any other way, really.”
What sobered the occasion was that Tiffany Saine, Harmon’s mother, was hospitalized when Derrick learned his dream to play in the NFL had come true.
“It was a little bittersweet; my mom wasn’t with me,” said Harmon. “She’s at the hospital right now on life support, so that was a little bittersweet, because she worked as hard as me to get to this moment, but it was still a once in a lifetime experience. So, like I said, I’m very excited.
“How resilient she was (helped me get to this moment). I grew up with her having probably seven, eight brain surgeries. And after all those brain surgeries, she did not give up. She still took me to practice, still went to work. And I always got it in the back of my head from the beginning of my college career – why can’t I keep going if I’m tired, if I’m injured or whatever it is. Why can’t I keep going, if she can get up and she keeps going after brain surgery.
“After I get off the phone with you guys, I’m heading straight to the hospital and tell her that her son got drafted.”
