When the Pittsburgh Steelers selected Navy RB/WR Eli Heidenreich in the seventh round, his tear-filled celebration was one of the most iconic moments of the 2026 NFL Draft. However, it wasn’t the only lasting moment for the Steelers. The other one didn’t even occur with the Steelers on the board. When the Steelers were preparing to make the 21st overall pick, they called USC WR Makai Lemon. After all, the Dallas Cowboys, owners of the 20th overall pick, weren’t going to select a wide receiver.
The Cowboys didn’t, of course. What they did do was trade the pick to their divisional rival. And the Philadelphia Eagles, amid speculation that WR A.J. Brown was on his way out of Philly, grabbed Lemon out from under the Steelers’ noses. The moment blew up because the Steelers were on the phone with Lemon, preparing to select him after the Cowboys would have made their pick.
It sparked a wave of debate. Were the Steelers out of line? Or was this just a simple mistake that happens all the time? Well, former Steelers LB Ryan Shazier experienced a similar moment in 2014. He thought he was going to the Cowboys, but the Steelers drafted him 15th overall — right before Dallas’ pick.
“I feel like it happens more than people expect, but the cameras were right in front of Makai when it happened,” Shazier said during an interview with Kyle Odegard of Casino Guru. “That’s why they saw it. It was a crazy moment for me because my dad texted my uncle, ‘Hey, Ryan is going to the Cowboys.’ My uncle was a huge Cowboys fan.
“But I’ll tell you this: I was much happier to be drafted by the Steelers than the Cowboys. I was a defensive fan. The Cowboys were America’s Team and that’s cool, but (Pittsburgh) had Coach [Mike] Tomlin, the Rooney family. I already knew about that stuff, and me and my dad liked their defense growing up. It would have been cool either way, but I’m truly thankful where I ended up.”
Now, the Steelers didn’t trade up in the first round to select Ryan Shazier. However, for whatever reason, the Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones thought the Steelers were going in a different direction and called Shazier to make him the pick. The Steelers decided they needed a fast, athletic linebacker in the middle of their defense and grabbed Shazier before he could become a Cowboy.
Knowing Jerry Jones, this moment has stuck with him over the last decade-plus. Steelers insider Gerry Dulac speculated that the Shazier pick played a big part in the Cowboys’ motivation to make the trade. After all, the Cowboys didn’t make a trade with a random team outside of their division or their conference.
As Dulac wrote, this “would be the equivalent of the Steelers making a deal to help the Baltimore Ravens.” No one could imagine that. Yet that’s exactly what Jones did. He took a pair of fourth-round picks from the Eagles to drop two spots.
That part of the equation is probably not very normal during the draft. But, according to Shazier, the Steelers making the call that turned out to be premature isn’t out of the norm. He’s not the only one who thinks that occurs regularly, either. NFL.com’s Bucky Brooks used to be a scout, and he called those early calls “standard procedure.”
It just so happened that the cameras caught the Steelers and the Eagles trying to speak with Makai Lemon at the same time.
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