Each NFL draft has a finite amount of high-end prospects. The best of the best. Those without any clear flaw. Physical, mental, health, or background. Highly coveted, they’re the type of player Pittsburgh Steelers’ scouting director Sheldon White is chasing after in each draft. In a recent interview, White summed up what makes “a dude” a dude.
“We have some different terms that we use, but I won’t use those; those are proprietary information,” White joked to Raiders’ reporter Hondo Carpenter. “But to me, a dude is a guy who has high character, he’s a hard worker, he’s a great teammate, he has high intellect, he has football instincts, and he’s productive. When the game is on the line, this guy is focused and he is making the play.”
White’s primary focus is leading the pro scouting department, players in the league, but he has a helping hand during draft season, too. Visible on the Pro Day trail, he spent days in the Dakotas and likely helped land South Dakota tight end JJ Galbreath as an undrafted free agent.
White is describing the players who check every box. Most prospects don’t. Maybe they’re too small, too slow, fail to put in the work, or simply aren’t putting up numbers. Pittsburgh largely subscribes to the theory that if a player didn’t produce in college, they won’t suddenly emerge in the NFL. Pittsburgh’s 2025 draft class reflects that. RB Kaleb Johnson dominated the Big Ten in 2024. EDGE Jack Sawyer made big plays in big moments. Will Howard brought Kansas State a Big 12 Title and Ohio State a national one, and even CB Donte Kent broke up a lot of passes in the MAC, 46 in total.
For someone like White, he hasn’t just scouted the NFL’s best. He’s played alongside them.
“I’ve been blessed to live and play with Lawrence Taylor and play with Barry Sanders,” he said. “Those guys were dudes.”
Playing in the NFL from 1988-1993, White was teammates with Taylor in New York and Sanders in Detroit. Two of the best in history, few have ever had the blend of physical talent and intensity that Taylor brought. He’s one of the greatest players in NFL history and is often touted by Bill Belichick as the No. 1 player he’s ever coached. Sanders was like tackling the wind, deftly avoiding defenders and weaving through traffic en route to big plays. The only thing that could slow him down was an early retirement.
Pittsburgh’s rarely in a position to draft any class’ blue-chip prospects. The Steelers haven’t held an original top-ten pick since 2000, though they moved up to No. 10 in 2019 for LB Devin Bush. Most years, they’re landing in the high-teens or somewhere in the 20s. But having an idea of what elite prospects look like creates a worthy baseline for the rest of the class. White and the Steelers are hoping this year’s class checks enough of those boxes to make long-term impacts.
