{"id":176855,"date":"2026-04-26T22:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T22:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/176855\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T22:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T22:54:13","slug":"pittsburgh-steelers-may-be-in-trouble-over-2026-nfl-draft-tactics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/176855\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Steelers May Be In Trouble Over 2026 NFL Draft Tactics"},"content":{"rendered":"

After setting a new attendance record, it\u2019s safe to say that hosting the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh<\/a>, Pennsylvania, was a huge success. As for the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> themselves, well, they had one of the strangest weekends among all 32 NFL teams.<\/p>\n

It all started in Round 1 on Thursday, where the Steelers held the 21st overall pick. Pittsburgh seemingly did what every team does: try to get in contact with the player they plan on selecting.<\/p>\n

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The only issue? Pittsburgh wasn\u2019t quite on the clock. It was actually the Dallas Cowboys<\/a>\u2018 turn to pick at No. 20. Perhaps the Steelers felt strongly about the Cowboys not selecting their target. Yet, what Pittsburgh didn\u2019t anticipate was the possibility of Dallas trading the pick elsewhere.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what happened, as the Cowboys struck a trade with their NFC East division rival, the Philadelphia Eagles<\/a>. The real awkward part came when the Eagles tried calling USC wide receiver Makai Lemon, who had already been on the phone with the Steelers.<\/p>\n

Once his people informed him that the Eagles were on the clock, Lemon promptly hung up the phone on the Steelers and began talking to Philadelphia, who was actually selecting him 20th overall rather than landing with Pittsburgh at 21.<\/p>\n

According to former Eagles executive Jake Rosenberg, the Steelers may have violated NFL rules by being in contact with Lemon when they weren\u2019t actually on the clock. According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk<\/a>, the NFL intends to investigate the Steelers\u2019 draft tactics now that the three-day event has concluded. Though, he expressed doubt that the league would assess any sort of penalty.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably not something the league will care about. With the first round trimmed to eight minutes, there will be periodic complications. Ultimately, it didn\u2019t keep the Eagles from getting Lemon. And the embarrassment may be punishment enough for the team that is hosting the draft.\u201d<\/p>\n

PFT on Steelers\/Makai Lemon failed pick<\/p>\n

We\u2019re guessing this won\u2019t be a big deal. But in the incredibly competitive NFL, it doesn\u2019t take much for a team and or agent to create a stink over what seems to be a small issue.<\/p>\n

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Related: 2026 NFL Draft Day 2: Winners, Losers from Rounds 2 and 3<\/a><\/p>\n

Related Headlines<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After setting a new attendance record, it\u2019s safe to say that hosting the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6537,43554,1418,4538,73,75,74,1833,4966],"class_list":["post-176855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-makai-lemon","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-the-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176855","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=176855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}