At your Super Bowl party, double-dipping might be off-limits. For a Pittsburgh Steelers team with 12 draft picks, double-dipping becomes expectation. Free agency will dictate what positions the team needs most, but Steelers.com editor Bob Labriola floated three positions the team could address twice next month.
“Other areas could be the defensive backfield – cornerbacks and safeties – and possibly offensive tackle, depending upon Broderick Jones’ prognosis,” Labriola wrote in response to a question about the Steelers drafting two wide receivers.
Bolstering the secondary with multiple picks is wise. Pittsburgh could use starters and depth. With James Pierre and Asante Samuel Jr. pending free agents, the team’s starter opposite Joey Porter Jr. is uncertain. Even if one of Pierre or Samuel returns, depth on the outside is thin, especially if Brandin Echols is ticketed to play in the slot. Last April’s seventh-round pick Donte Kent tore his ACL late in the season and may not be ready for training camp. Cory Trice Jr.’s injuries have only mounted and make him impossible to trust.
Pittsburgh has four pending free agent safeties: Kyle Dugger, Miles Killebrew, Chuck Clark, and Jabrill Peppers. The team won’t be in a hurry to re-sign any of them and though bringing back one of those veteran names has value, the Steelers must get younger, faster, and have an eye toward the future. Jalen Ramsey, should he even remain at safety, probably won’t play past 2026 and how the new coaching staff feels about DeShon Elliott is unknown.
Labriola adding offensive tackle is interesting. Jones’ health is murky and Omar Khan seemed genuinely unsure when he’ll return from his 2025 neck-fusion surgery. Grabbing two offensive tackles might be one too many, especially with Dylan Cook still on roster and the team likely to re-sign Andrus Peat or a veteran equivalent.
Two offensive linemen make sense, a tackle and guard, but probably not two pure tackles unless one of them plans to kick inside. As was the case in 2023 when Pittsburgh bookended its draft with Broderick Jones and Spencer Anderson, the latter projected as a guard despite being listed at tackle.
Wide receiver is the safest position to presume a double-dip, as our Josh Carney recently outlined. For the team need and the fact wide receiver generally has a deeper pool of prospects than say, offensive tackle. Cornerback probably follows with the catch-all offensive line bucket after.
Assuming Pittsburgh doesn’t use all 12 draft picks, the number of trades the team makes and number of picks left over will dictate how much double-dipping the Steelers do.
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