With RB Najee Harris set to sign with the Los Angeles Chargers, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ recent history of first-round picks is looking bleak. Since 2013, they have had very few success stories, and even fewer long-term ones. For practical purposes, we can consider a success a player who signed a multi-year extension, or one who should have.
By that rubric, the Steelers have only had two first-round success stories in former GM Kevin Colbert’s final decade. That would be 2014 ILB Ryan Shazier and 2017 OLB T.J. Watt, with the former requiring a caveat. Najee Harris is actually one of the Steelers’ better first-round picks, which is saying something. A ground-rule double, perhaps?
Over the past four seasons, Najee Harris has rushed for over 1,000 yards each year for the Steelers. He has 4,212 career rushing yards on 1,097 attempts with 28 touchdowns. He also has 1,149 receiving yards and six touchdowns on 180 receptions. The Steelers began using him as a bell-cow, but eventually shifted to a two-back system. That was due to the emergence of Jaylen Warren, to whom they applied a second-round restricted tender.
Between 2003 and 2012, the Steelers drafted Troy Polamalu, Ben Roethlisberger, Heath Miller, Santonio Holmes, Lawrence Timmons, Maurkice Pouncey, Cameron Heyward, and David DeCastro in the first round. Rashard Mendenhall and Ziggy Hood did not sign extensions but at least had decent careers. That was the low end, though, and that’s basically the Steelers’ new standard—players like Harris.
In 2013, they drafted OLB Jarvis Jones, arguably their biggest outright first-round “bust” in some time. Perhaps the most damaging was their 2019 selection of ILB Devin Bush for whom they traded up 10 spots. They gave up second- and third-round picks to jump from 20 to 10. While he had a solid rookie season, he never played to that level again. A major injury in Year 2 altered his trajectory, of course, but he never looked like he was taking off. The Steelers at least got four solid, consistent, unremarkable seasons out of Najee Harris.
Other lowlights include CB Artie Burns in 2016, whom the Steelers settled on after missing out on William Jackson III, and S Terrell Edmunds in 2018. But an obvious headliner is QB Kenny Pickett, whom they drafted 20th overall in 2022 and traded two years later. Bud Dupree is the only player comparable to the career Harris had with the Steelers during that time.
Watt stands head and shoulders above everybody else during that first-round pick run by the Steelers, with Shazier after him, and Harris and Dupree jockeying for third. But five bad or underwhelming selections helped set the franchise back. Jones, Burns, Edmunds, Bush, and Pickett hurt, to the point where hindsight makes it seem even wiser that they traded their 2020 first-round pick for Minkah Fitzpatrick.
And the thing is, there isn’t overwhelming evidence that things are better under Omar Khan. They traded up for OT Broderick Jones in 2023, and so far, he has been a disappointment. His sophomore season raised concerns about his long-term future, but he has every opportunity to turn his career around. Last year’s first-round pick, OT Troy Fautanu, spent most of the year on IR, so we don’t even know about him yet. Since Watt in 2017, Najee Harris is by far the most successful Steelers first-round pick—and now he’s gone.
