{"id":113152,"date":"2026-02-13T15:44:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T15:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/113152\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T15:44:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T15:44:06","slug":"pittsburgh-steelers-select-acc-cornerback-in-cbs-mock-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/113152\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Steelers select ACC cornerback in CBS mock draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 NFL Draft is only 10 weeks away from its debut on the North Shore to make Pittsburgh the epicenter of the football world. The Steelers have a wide variety of needs on both sides of the ball to address, most glaringly at quarterback, wide receiver, and defensive back.<\/p>\n

A yearly offseason tradition is reading various mock drafts and identifying where the Steelers may go with their first pick. At No. 21 overall, the Steelers will miss out on Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza and potentially some of the top wide receivers in the class.<\/p>\n

NFL staff writer Garrett Podell of CBS Sports released his first mock draft<\/a> on Wednesday. In his opening projection, Podell has the Steelers selecting Clemson cornerback Avieon Terrell.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like Terrell because he\u2019s an aggressive DB who\u2019s great at forcing turnovers,\u201d Podell said on 93.7 The Fan.<\/a><\/p>\n

Terrell forced five fumbles last season, the most of any corner in college football. Podell pointed to Terrell\u2019s eight forced fumbles since 2023 as the most for a corner in the country during that span, linking Terrell to the Steelers\u2019 turnover culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s a hard-nosed DB that would probably fit in really well in Pittsburgh,\u201d Podell said. \u201cHe plays the nickel\/slot area well and is a nice closer in short-zone coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Podell did say that Terrell\u2019s 5-foot-11 frame leads him to sometimes struggle against better wide receivers. Terrell didn\u2019t record an interception in 2025, but totaled 4.5 tackles for loss and three sacks. He picked off three passes over his first two collegiate years.<\/p>\n

Avieon Terrell is the younger brother of Falcons elite corner A.J. Terrell, who was the 16th overall pick in 2020. But how similar are they?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say different games,\u201d Podell said. \u201cA.J. is your prototypical outside corner with the build (6-foot-1, 200 pounds). Avieon is a little smaller (5-foot-11, 180 pounds).<\/p>\n

Podell pointed to Asante Samuel, Brandin Echols, and James Pierre being free agents as a key reason why Terrell could make sense. He may fit best as a replacement for Echols, who primarily played the slot.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the next level, maybe a nickel. You could play him outside, I think he\u2019d have to run a little bit more of a zone-heavy scheme to make that work with him at outside,\u201d Podell said. \u201cI think he\u2019s going to have a long career at nickel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Podell admitted it might be a hard sell to a fan base to pick a nickel corner in the first round, but pointed to the champions as a noteworthy successful comparison.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people look at that and go \u2018geez, why would we spend a first-round pick on a nickel corner?\u2019\u201d Podell said. \u201cLook at the Seattle Seahawks, they just won the Super Bowl, and nickel was their most used defensive formation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Seahawks only played base defense on 6.3%<\/a> of their snaps, the fewest in the NFL. Rookie Nick Emmanwori totaled five tackles in the Super Bowl victory over New England, and finished second in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting behind Browns linebacker Carson SweSchewsinger.<\/p>\n

The Steelers finished 2025 17th in points (22.8), 29th in passing yards (243.9), and 28th in total yards (374.1).<\/p>\n

\u201cIn today\u2019s modern NFL, it\u2019s a pass-heavy game, but if you can stop the run out of nickel and still have five defensive backs on the field, it makes you a pretty tough defense to go up against,\u201d Podell said.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh will host the NFL Draft outside Acrisure Stadium from April 23-25. Past drafts have seen upwards of 500,000 people taking part in draft festivities.<\/p>\n

The weekend could be the busiest and one of the o most lucrative in Pittsburgh history.<\/p>\n

Podell will release a new mock draft every Wednesday leading up to the first round on April 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 NFL Draft is only 10 weeks away from its debut on the North Shore to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74,4852,12641,12642,4853],"class_list":["post-113152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-steelers-commentary","tag-pittsburgh-steelers-draft","tag-pittsburgh-steelers-mock-draft","tag-pittsburgh-steelers-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}