{"id":119369,"date":"2025-08-29T21:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T21:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/119369\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T21:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T21:55:13","slug":"keeping-donte-kent-may-reveal-shift-in-steelers-roster-building-priorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/119369\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping Donte Kent May Reveal Shift In Steelers’ Roster-Building Priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Logan Lee last year and Donte Kent this year<\/a>, the Steelers have clearly shifted focus when retaining draft picks. Both players had minor injuries, but the Steelers chose to place them on the Reserve\/Injured list rather than waiving them with an injury designation. In an earlier era, perhaps, they would have done so. Whether that\u2019s just symptomatic of a new regime or a reflection of a new reality, that is unclear. Most likely, it\u2019s a little of both.<\/p>\n

Since Omar Khan took over as general manager, the Steelers have retained all of their draft picks. That\u2019s three years running, including Donte Kent and Carson Bruener as 2025 seventh-round picks. Even Logan Lee made the 53-man roster this year, for now at least. The only draft pick over the last three years who is gone is Ryan Watts, and that\u2019s due to a career-ending injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But is this an Omar Khan and Andy Weidl thing, or is it just the Steelers being realistic? They recently talked about the recognition of the reliance on young talent in the near future with a high-priced, aging roster. That\u2019s one of the reasons they have been hoarding not only their draft picks, but also draft selection<\/a>s, like Kent.<\/p>\n

A seventh-round pick out of Central Michigan, Donte Kent hardly got to do anything before suffering a lower-body injury. Before that, he did seem to be making some plays during training camp. Perhaps he made just enough to keep the team intrigued.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s worth noting that this is not entirely a unique development. Years ago, rookie college free agent WR Eli Rogers suffered a season-ending injury early in training camp, before the preseason. But they liked him enough to keep him on IR all year. They could have waived him with an injury settlement, but they wanted to see him develop. He did, and they are hoping to see the same from Kent in time.<\/p>\n

Although Kent\u2019s injury was not serious, there\u2019s a good chance he never practices this year. Or at least not until toward the end of the season, when the Steelers can open his practice window and not face an ultimatum about activating him to the 53-man roster. That\u2019s what they did with Lee and Roman Wilson a year ago and should with him and Will Howard.<\/p>\n

I do think it\u2019s more than a coincidence, and more than just more precise drafting, behind the Steelers retaining three years\u2019 worth of draft classes. Prior to now, they never even rostered an entire draft class before\u2014perhaps ever. Of course, the draft used to have 450 rounds, and now there\u2019s only seven. But to keep all of your sixth- and seventh-round picks over a stretch of years<\/a> is more than coincidental, fortunately, for guys like Cory Trice Jr., Logan Lee, and Donte Kent.<\/p>\n

Not that they haven\u2019t also drafted well, and I do need to acknowledge that. With the exception of Lee, there isn\u2019t a Khan draft pick on the current 53 that doesn\u2019t \u201cbelong\u201d there. Spencer Anderson is a valuable backup, and Trice has a place when he is healthy. Carson Bruener earned his spot over Mark Robinson. Now the Steelers want to see if Donte Kent can earn his keep in the future, and they didn\u2019t want to risk exposing him to waivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Logan Lee last year and Donte Kent this year, the Steelers have clearly shifted focus when retaining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[73797,349,1321,99,3795],"class_list":["post-119369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-donte-kent","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-sports","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}