The Pittsburgh Steelers continued a seven-year streak of drafting a defensive lineman in 2024 with Logan Lee in Round 6. The Iowa product is the latest that they have drafted a defensive lineman since Carlos Davis in 2020. But Lee didn’t think he was going to have such a long wait.
“It was a very long few days”, Lee recently recounted to Matt Randazzo for WQAD News 8. “Based off of some of the feedback we were getting, I was expecting to go a little bit earlier. But we didn’t really know where. We had about 10 teams that we knew were somewhat interested, so we were just trying to sift through that a little bit. But we ended up waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and then in the sixth round the Steelers ended up calling”.
The Steelers had to wait as well because they had no fifth-round pick. They drafted OL Mason McCormick 119th overall in the fourth round and took Lee roughly 60 picks later. One imagines they may have had interest in Lee in the fifth round if they would have had a selection. When they had no fifth-round pick in 2021, they traded a 2022 fourth to enter the round for Isaiahh Loudermilk.
Loudermilk remains on the roster, as does 2022 third-round selection DeMarvin Leal, but will Lee push one of them off? The Steelers’ starting three consist of Cameron Heyward, Larry Ogunjobi, and 2023 second-round selection Keeanu Benton. Behind them they also bring back Montravius Adams.
On top of that, they signed veteran Dean Lowry in free agency. If you assume all five of them make the roster, which is reasonable, you have, at most, two spots left. To keep even two of Loudermilk, Leal, and Lee, you need to carry seven defensive linemen. They’ve done that before, but that’s also a lot of d-linemen.
As for Lee, it’s not too surprising he lasted until the sixth round. But it’s also easy to see why the Steelers, who brought him in for a pre-draft visit, liked him. The typical 3-4 defensive end body type has fallen out of favor, so they collect them when they can. That’s the reason they cited when they moved into the fifth round in 2021 for Loudermilk.
And like Loudermilk, Lee comes from a college program that sets him up for a somewhat easier transition. Both Wisconsin and Iowa, respectively, play a more pro-style defense bearing resemblances to the Steelers’ 3-4.
Lee talked in the same interview about how he feels comfortable acclimating to the Steelers’ scheme. “I would have the opportunity to play the 4i, which I believe my skill set will be optimized for”, he said. “In nickel packages, when they bring in sub-packages for third-down opportunities, they’ll run down more of a four-down front. I’ll be able to play what I played at Iowa”.
But as head coach Mike Tomlin tells every player he coaches, it doesn’t matter how you got here, it matters what you do with the time you have while you’re here. Logan Lee is a sixth-round pick, but that doesn’t define his potential. He can define that for himself with what he does on the field and in the classroom.
