Forget this year's draft: Steelers and other teams already are jockeying for position for a loaded 2027 class

Ray Fittipaldo, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Apr 5, 2026

Published in Football

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PITTSBURGH — The NFL draft coming to Pittsburgh later this month is a big deal for the city. The league’s signature offseason event will span three days and is expected to draw more than 500,000 people to the downtown and North Shore areas.

But there are plenty of NFL teams, including the Steelers, who already have an eye toward the 2027 draft. Personnel evaluators are calling the ’27 draft one of the most talented classes in recent history, and the quality and depth of the quarterbacks are a big reason why.

The jockeying for extra picks in next year’s draft has already begun, and the Steelers are one of the teams trying to position themselves to be a player in quarterback sweepstakes.

General manager Omar Khan already has nine projected selections with two extra coming via the NFL’s compensation pick formula, which is based on the players a team loses and signs in free agency. The Steelers are projected to have fifth- and seventh-round comp picks next year.

That’s nice, but those picks won’t help Khan move up to get a quarterback. You need early-round picks to make a big move up in the draft.

With five picks in the top 100 of this year’s draft, the Steelers have options to trade for picks into next year’s draft.

“The Steelers have three third-round picks. I’d use one and then trade the other two for second-round picks in next year’s draft,” said Doug Whaley, formerly the general manager of the Buffalo Bills. “Then you would have some ammunition. Now that’s easier said than done. It’s easy to say trade back, but someone has to want to come up.”

Whaley was involved in one of the best known draft-day trades when he sent Kansas City the No. 10 pick in the 2017 draft for the Chiefs’ first-round pick (No. 27 overall), a third-round pick and a 2018 first-round pick.

The Chiefs used the No. 10 pick to select Patrick Mahomes, who has led the Chiefs to three Super Bowl victories in his first nine NFL seasons.

“I’m the guy who traded away Michael Jordan,” Whaley said, poking fun at himself.

But there were reasons for Whaley’s decision. For one, Mahomes was not a universally praised prospect. He came out of the Texas Tech’s “Air Raid” system, an offense which had produced a number of quarterbacks who busted out in the NFL. Whaley said the Bills would have drafted Mahomes had he fallen to No. 27, but he was interested in future picks for the same reason Khan is this year.

In 2015, Whaley hired former Steelers scout Ron Hughes as a consultant. He asked Hughes to do a three-year quarterback study looking at the younger quarterbacks who were coming up through the college ranks. Whaley worked with Hughes when he was a scout with the Steelers and trusted his eye for quarterbacks.

Hughes’ study concluded the 2018 draft was just as strong, if not stronger, than the 2017 draft.

Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Allen and Josh Rosen were selected in the top 10 and Lamar Jackson was taken with the final pick in the first round. Whaley didn’t get to see his plan come to fruition. He was replaced by Brandon Beane after the 2017 season, but Beane used the draft capital Whaley acquired to move up from No. 12 to No. 7 to get Josh Allen, who, if not for Mahomes, might have a couple of Super Bowl titles of his own.

This year’s quarterback class is viewed as weak among NFL evaluators. Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza is expected to be taken No. 1 overall by the Las Vegas Raiders, but there might not be another quarterback selected in the first round.

The 2027 and 2028 quarterback classes, however, are viewed as strong and deep. Texas’ Arch Manning, Oregon’s Dante Moore, Ohio State’s Julian Sayin, USC’s Jayden Maiava and South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellars are a few of the quarterbacks who could go in the first round. Manning, Moore and Sellars returned to college this year rather than turn professional.

The 2028 class, with several quarterbacks who burst onto the scene last fall as freshmen, has just as much buzz. Bryce Underwood of Michigan and Cal’s Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele are two of the top names to watch in that class.

Trading future picks was a hot topic at the NFL owner’s meetings last week in Arizona. The Cleveland Browns proposed a rules change that would allow teams to trade future picks five years out rather than the current rule of three. They later withdrew the proposal when it was obvious it would not pass, but it could resurface in future years because GMs are always searching for ways to acquire their future franchise quarterbacks.

Browns GM Andrew Berry, before the proposal was withdrawn, said being able to trade picks five years out would give teams more “flexibility and creativity” in how they build out their rosters.

The other side of the argument comes from the NFL analytics community, which believes future draft picks are overvalued. But as long as quarterback remains the most important position in the game, desperate teams will be willing to do whatever it takes to be in position to draft one.

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