The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2025 draft class contained several themes. A clear focus on upgrading the defensive side of the football. A trend of Big Ten prospects. Focusing on youth when the team could. And drafting players who could make a seamless transition from the college to pros. The same could apply to members of the 2024 draft class, including DL Logan Lee. Coming from Iowa to Pittsburgh, two systems that share many of the same principles, made the NFL less of a jump and more of a natural step-up.
“Learning the college playbook at Iowa was much, much more difficult than learning the NFL playbooks,” he told Matt Randazzo on the Off The Air podcast. “I don’t know if it’s more difficult, per se. Maybe it’s just because I came from high school where it’s a couple stunt plays and the same thing all day. And then you have to run 90 different calls in a two-second [window]. It’s wild.”
That’s no shade at Pittsburgh. Instead, it’s reality that Iowa’s “pro-style” defense asked plenty out of its players and made them ready for the NFL. No different than those who came from Nick Saban and Alabama, running what was essentially an NFL-style defense at the college system. And creating one less hurdle as rookies assimilated into the pros.
Lee starred at Orion High School in Illinois, playing offense and defensive line. He left as the school’s all-time leader with 35 sacks, going 36-10 over his career. An impressive showing for a school that has roughly only 300 students. That small school led to an equally skimmed-down playbook, not overloading a roster already facing plenty of challenges.
It made the jump to a power program like Iowa more jarring than Lee’s move from college to the NFL. But the similarities the Hawkeyes and the Steelers weren’t as dramatic. In the interview, Lee mentioned his job in college was to occupy blocks and allow linebackers to run free, largely the same role Steelers defensive linemen have.
The system fit is one reason why Pittsburgh drafted first-rounder Derrick Harmon, who played in a 3-4 front at Oregon that’s very similar to what the Steelers run. It’s also no coincidence Pittsburgh has added plenty of Lee’s teammates, too.
“I think even the Iowa guys in Pittsburgh right now, the defensive guys especially, they understand, they’re like, ‘This isn’t so bad. The install is pretty easy.’ Yeah, because we did 90 different plays we had to know at Iowa. There’s a lot of maturity with the Iowa guys coming out. It’s just because of the difficulty of the system we ran.”
Pittsburgh drafted two Hawkeyes this year, selecting RB Kaleb Johnson in the third round and NT Yahya Black in the fifth. Safety Sebastian Castro was scooped up as an undrafted free agent.
Wisconsin. Iowa. Oregon. College football’s closest defensive systems to Pittsburgh’s. In order to reduce projection and therefore risk, the Steelers have leaned on investing in those schools. All it’s done is build one of the most consistent NFL defenses, a unit that’s finished top 10 in scoring five of the last six years.
