A former running back like LeSean McCoy was hoping the Pittsburgh would add help on his side of the ball Thursday night. Instead, the Steelers focused on improving their defensive line, leading McCoy to bash the team for still being directionless at the game’s most important position: quarterback.
“We all should sit up here on his desk and say it was the wrong decision to pass Shedeur Sanders,” McCoy said Friday on FS1’s The Facility. “Who do y’all have over there?”
Pittsburgh wasn’t the only team to pass on Sanders. Once viewed as a top-five selection, he fell out of the first round entirely, passed over by teams needing a quarterback. The New Orleans Saints didn’t make him their pick at No. 9. The New York Giants went elsewhere at No. 3 and traded back into the first round to land Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart. And no team made the climb into the late first round to take Sanders.
But McCoy sees the need. And thinks Sanders had to be the guy to fill it.
“I don’t see what the Steelers are doing,” he said. “You go in there with a freaking backup quarterback Mason Rudolph to lead your team. When you go out there and [could] get a superstar like Shedeur Sanders?”
Pittsburgh’s 2025 starter remains uncertain. It could be Aaron Rodgers even as the Steelers wait – and apparently wanted – an answer before the draft. It could be Rudolph, with whom the team is most familiar and comfortable. It could be an outsider like Kirk Cousins, still mentioned in trade talks as he hopes to work his way out of Atlanta. In a division and conference full of high-end quarterback play, the Steelers are at a disadvantage.
“I’m so lost with the Steelers right now. I don’t know what they’re doing right now. You’re telling me you’re about to lead your whole team against Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson and that hard division with Mason Rudolph?” McCoy said. “Are y’all kidding me man?”
Still, if the Steelers didn’t view Sanders as the future of the franchise, then he can’t be the pick. Teams drafting first-round quarterbacks can’t just like them. They must love them. Evidently, Pittsburgh didn’t. Only the future will bear out if the Steelers made the right decision. But they weren’t the only team that didn’t see Sanders as the “superstar” McCoy does, leaving them to wait and look for other options later in this year’s draft and into the 2026 one.
