Max Iheanachor
Max Iheanachor
Thursday was Max Iheanachor’s long-awaited NFL debut. The Steelers’ first-round pick got off to a great start during training camp but suffered an injury just before the first preseason game. He was in the conversation to start at right tackle before the injury halted such talk.
That caused him to miss both the Green Bay and New York Jets games. Finally, he got a chance to suit up against Buffalo on Thursday night, and he felt good about his performance.
“I thought it was fun, going out there with the guys, being back, only had two practices,” Iheanachor said after the Steelers’ 28-27 loss to the Bills via Steelers.com. “Stuff didn’t go as planned out there, but you know, just got to learn from it and prepare better for the next game, or when my next opportunity comes”
Iheanachor had some rough moments early. He’ll say he didn’t have any jitters, but even at the preseason level the first NFL snaps can be a shock. One of those early mistakes came on a sack he allowed, which Iheanachor broke down.
“The sack, I just kind of lunged. Watched the tape on that, my feet was fine, just little stuff. I gotta go back and watch film, see what I could learn, and just get better,” Iheanachor said.
Max Iheanachor isn’t wrong that his feet were good on the play, and there weren’t any big issues in that regard. But he did lose the battle with his hands. Iheanachor tried to get his hands on the chest of the defender, who immediately swatted them down hard enough to throw Iheanachor off balance. From there, Iheanachor couldn’t recover. He was also flagged for holding, but that was a borderline call.
His pass blocking wasn’t especially impressive in 35 snaps played, but Iheanachor did have some really nice reps as a run blocker. Including one in which he paved the way for Eli Heidenreich to barrel into the end zone.
ELI TD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #Steelers pic.twitter.com/8ZNaZ2OkOG
— Steelers Depot 7⃣ (@Steelersdepot) August 28, 2026
“It was fun, just always scoring, putting points up, especially for him,” Iheanachor said of the play. “It’s just a lot of excitement and joy.”
Iheanachor returned to practice earlier this week and given all the time he missed it’s not a surprise he had some early mistakes in a messy preseason game on the road.
What you wanted to see was him work through those and start to show glimpses of his potential. For the most part, that’s what Max Iheanachor did as the game wore on. We’ll see if it’s enough to work his way into a starting job to open the regular season. But there were some encouraging moments from Iheanachor’s debut.