It’s safe to say the Pittsburgh Steelers liked CB Beanie Bishop Jr. coming out of college a fair bit. While they didn’t draft him, they did give him a robust (for them) college free-agent signing bonus. And they didn’t have a seventh-round pick this year, which they could have used to take him.
Either way, Bishop wasn’t about to take any chances. A perpetual underdog, he saw the Steelers as his best chance. While the Washington Commanders brought him in for a local visit, the Steelers were the only team to bring him in for an official top-30 visit. Teams can only bring in 30 non-local players for pre-draft visits, and Bishop was one of theirs.
“I had a top 30 [visit] with Pittsburgh”, Bishop told Christian Kuntz, his Steelers teammate, on Kuntz’s podcast. “I’m like, ‘Oh shit, this is my only top 30’. But I told them, I’m like, ‘Yo, I got the Ravens lined up, I got the Browns lined up’. But I didn’t have nothing lined up. I was lying, bro. Because at the end of the day, you’ve got to sell yourself”.
An undersized cornerback who transferred multiple times in college before finishing his career at West Virginia, Beanie Bishop Jr. knows he always had the deck stacked against him. So when he had the opportunity to shuffle the cards a bit, he took advantage. Did it actually change anything? Of course not, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, I got some more 30 visits lined up’. The whole time, I didn’t have nothing lined up”, Bishop reiterated of his meeting with the Steelers. “All these other teams are asking, ‘Who have you talked to’? I’m like, ‘Bro, everybody in your division? I talked to ‘em! And you’re the last team I actually talked to’”!
While teams can only bring in 30 non-local players for pre-draft visits, they can meet an unlimited number of players in various other ways. From Pro Days to bowl games to the Combine to phone calls, the only limitations for teams are time and your imagination. The Steelers are the only team that brought Bishop in, but they’re far from the only team that talked to him.
After four years at Western Kentucky and one at Minnesota, Bishop transferred to West Virginia in 2023. That year, he recorded four interceptions with 20 passes defensed, which put him on the Steelers’ radar. He proceeded to achieve a rare feat, starting the Steelers’ season opener as a rookie college free agent.
Amusingly, Beanie Bishop admitted the Steelers probably don’t know that he lied, but they certainly will now. If they didn’t listen to Christian Kuntz’s podcast, they will probably come across this article. And of course they won’t care; in fact, Mike Tomlin will a kick out of it and praise him for his gumption. “You’ve got to finesse your way into it sometimes”, Bishop said. He’s not wrong.
While he has had his trials and tribulations as a rookie, Bishop has settled into his role. Playing about 60 percent of the Steelers’ defensive snaps, he has 44 tackles, two for loss, three interceptions, six passes defensed, and half a sack, with a recovered fumble. If a little white lie helped to get him here, nobody would care. He is where he belongs, with Aaron Rodgers’ signature to prove it.
