The Pittsburgh Steelers haven’t made many obvious trade blunders in recent memory. Former GM Kevin Colbert believed in building a contending team through the draft, consistently hitting on early-round picks and hitting on enough late-round flyers to take the team over the top. Since Omar Khan took over as GM in 2022, the Steelers have been a lot more aggressive in the trade market. Trading for star wideout D.K. Metcalf and trading away George Pickens are just the latest moves in the wild saga that’s marked Khan’s tenure as GM.
While it’s too early to properly evaluate those trades, Bleacher Report released an article listing every team’s worst trade of the last decade. They chose the 2019 draft trade to acquire Devin Bush as the worst Steelers trade over the last 10 years.
“The Steelers dealt their second-round pick along with a 2020 third-rounder, to move up 10 spots and take Bush,” wrote Kristopher Knox of Bleacher Report. “While the Michigan product was widely considered the second-best off-ball linebacker in the 2019 class — behind Devin White — he was still an undersized defender at what isn’t considered a premium position. Bush racked up 109 tackles as a rookie but was also credited with an alarming 14 missed tackles that season. He suffered a torn ACL in his second season and was out of Pittsburgh after only four years.”
Trading up in the first round is always a bold move that carries a lot of risk. The Steelers moved up 10 spots from pick 20 to pick 10 in the 2019 draft because they had extra draft picks from the Antonio Brown trade. And more importantly, because they firmly believed that Devin Bush could be a franchise-altering defender.
Pittsburgh needed someone to fill the inside linebacker void following Ryan Shazier’s devastating injury in the 2017 season. Bush had the same blazing speed that made Shazier such an electric player (Shazier ran a 4.38 40-yard dash; Bush ran a 4.43). Just like Shazier at Ohio State, Bush was a defensive leader for a top-tier Big Ten program (Michigan) where he racked up tackles, TFLs, sacks and passes defended.
At the time, and even after his rookie season, the trade seemed to make sense. But once Bush tore his ACL, he was never able to regain his footing with the Steelers. Kevin Colbert and Co. believed he could be a decade-long starter at inside linebacker for Pittsburgh, and he was gone after just four seasons.
Looking back on it now, the trade was particularly bad because there were plenty of players that the Steelers could have taken instead of Bush in the same pick range. Bleacher Report mentioned Rashan Gary, Chris Lindstrom, Brian Burns, Dexter Lawrence and Jeffrey Simmons as Pro Bowlers that fell between picks 10-20 in the 2019 draft.
The Steelers not only missed out on one of those guys, but they also sacrificed two future picks to move up and get Devin Bush. Unfortunately for the Steelers, Bush might not be the worst first-round draft pick they’ve made in the last decade (sorry Kenny Pickett). But Bush was certainly the most expensive.
