The Pittsburgh Steelers shocked many by passing on Shedeur Sanders with the 21st overall pick in this NFL Draft. The quarterback spent over five hours in a pre-draft meeting with head coach Mike Tomlin, and there was a lot of talk about how well the Colorado Buffaloes star would fit in Pittsburgh. However, the team shifted its focus and drafted Oregon defensive tackle Derrick Harmon.
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The latest development has stunned many, but former Steelers safety and ESPN analyst Ryan Clark is not among them. He believes that teams snubbing the Boulder star isn’t due to a negative media agenda or any superficial reasons.
“This is about the evaluation of the quarterback,” Clark began. “I don’t believe coaches are stupid enough—they have a job to do and they know that job is winning [and] to [not] pass up on someone they believe will help them win.”
In Pittsburgh’s case, Clark believes they learned the lessons the hard way in the past and were not prepared to go through it again.
“What it said about this year is, if you ain’t our guy, we ain’t reaching for you at the quarterback position,” he said. “The Pittsburgh Steelers, who have been through it with Kenny Pickett, decided they weren’t going to go through it twice.”
The Steelers invested the 20th overall pick in Pickett just three years ago, and that turned out to be a disastrous move. Not only was Pickett marred with injuries, but his stint in Pittsburgh also saw him have the lowest touchdown percentage of all eligible starting quarterbacks back then.
Simply put, Pickett left the Steelers with a host of underwhelming results and a quarterback room that is now filled with backups. Hence, taking another swing at a QB with uncertain potential would’ve felt like déjà vu for the Steelers—a reminder of the path they had already taken.
.@Realrclark25 and @PSchrags explain why Shedeur Sanders fell out of the first round in the 2025 NFL draft. pic.twitter.com/9DI8ig51F6
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) April 25, 2025
But Ryan Clark didn’t stop there. The analyst believes that uncertainty is another factor contributing to Sanders’ falling draft stock. As many analysts found it hard to evaluate the quarterback based on his pure talent. In many ways, teams betting on the quarterback don’t really know what his upside is.
“He doesn’t have the cannon arm. He’s not a 4.5 guy. He doesn’t have this big stature in the pocket,” Clark explained. “So it’s going to be, ‘What things does he not have that I can’t teach?’”
According to Clark, once teams began the evaluation process, the mystique around Sanders started to fade. At the end of the college football season, Sanders and Cam Ward were widely considered the top two quarterbacks in the 2025 class.
But that was before teams began peeling back the layers—watching tapes, digging into the interviews, and examining traits that don’t show up on stat sheets.
“When you get to last night and we expect him to go first round, he expects himself to go first round—then it becomes a huge disappointment,” Clark said.
The ESPN analyst’s insight doesn’t suggest Sanders won’t succeed. However, it does highlight the increasing risk aversion of franchises, particularly those with past draft bruises, when the evaluation doesn’t immediately stand out as a franchise cornerstone.
For Shedeur Sanders, who has all the swagger, stats, and headlines, the wait goes on. As for the Steelers, the path forward remains a question mark with uncertainty over Aaron Rodgers’ future. But it seems like they would rather wait for A-Rod than gamble on a draft prospect following the Kenny Pickett debacle.
