The Pittsburgh Steelers invested heavily in their defense in the 2025 NFL Draft, with five of the team’s seven picks coming on that side of the ball. The defensive line in particular was a clear area of need, especially improving Pittsburgh’s run defense. But two players the team selected, first-round pick Derrick Harmon and fourth-round pick Jack Sawyer project to be among the most productive pass rushers in the class in ESPN’s Seth Walder’s sack forecast.
Walder tries to project sacks through the first three seasons of a player’s career, and Harmon placed sixth with 10 projected sacks, while Sawyer came in at No. 10 with 7.9 projected, which we can round up to eight.
Per Walder, the metric takes into account college sack production, college pressure rate and pass-run rate from Pro Football Focus, their grade on Scouts Inc., age, college Football Power Index (FPI), position, and measurements/NFL Combine info.
Both Harmon and Sawyer were productive getting to the quarterback in college. Harmon led all interior defensive linemen in pressures with 55 in 2024, which translated to five sacks. He has legitimate juice as a pass rusher, and he should hopefully help the Steelers improve when it comes to getting after the quarterback. The current estimate has him at a little over three sacks in each of his first three seasons, although since it’s hard to really come up with a predictor for sacks, the numbers across the board are a little bit low.
Sawyer had more collegiate sack production than Harmon, with 23 total, including 9.5 last season while coming off the edge at Ohio State. While he’s projected to be a better run defender than pass rusher in the NFL, he still has the ability to get after the passer, and that’s reflected in these projections. As a fourth-round pick, coming in at No. 10 certainly isn’t a bad spot for him. Learning under T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith and Nick Herbig will also surely help him improve, and Sawyer could become a viable pass-rush option for the Steelers.
Sawyer was one of two players not selected in the first two rounds to be in the top 10, along with LSU’s Bradyn Swinson, who went in the fifth round to the New England Patriots. He’s also projected for more sacks than plenty of players who were drafted ahead of him, including first-round picks Walter Nolen and Mason Graham.
It’s a promising projection for the two young Steelers defenders, and they’ll get the first chance to show off their pass-rush juice on the field as a member of the Steelers when rookie minicamp begins on May 9.
