The Pittsburgh Steelers massively overhauled their quarterback room this offseason. They traded incumbent starter Kenny Pickett to the Philadelphia Eagles. They allowed backups Mason Rudolph and Mitchell Trubisky to walk in free agency. And of course, they signed Russell Wilson to a one-year deal upon his release from the Denver Broncos, and traded for former Chicago Bears starter Justin Fields.
Ahead of this week's NFL Draft, Steelers general manager Omar Khan admitted that it's unlikely the team would take a quarterback with the No. 20 overall pick in the first round, but he also didn't entirely rule it out.
"I think it's not realistic that we'll be taking a quarterback in Round 1, if that's what you're asking, no," Khan said during his pre-draft press conference. "There are some good players there, and I wouldn't close the door on anything. If there's an opportunity to improve that room, obviously, we'll look at it, but like you said, we've got three guys who are on one-year deals and we have to be open to it."
Wilson is on a one-year deal for near the league minimum, while Fields is headed into the final season of his rookie-scale contract. Third quarterback Kyle Allen is on a one-year contract as well.
So the future of the quarterback position for the Steelers is clearly quite unsettled. It probably doesn't make much sense for them to draft a signal-caller in the first round given the presence of both Wilson and Fields, but if a good enough player slips to their pick, they also don't have enough invested in either of those two players to really foreclose the possibility. That's why you get an answer like the one Khan gave, where he said it probably won't happen, but you can essentially never say never.
