One of the most unusual stories that emerged from the 2026 draft in Pittsburgh originated in Pittsburgh, where the Steelers called receiver Makai Lemon before the Steelers were on the clock. The Eagles traded up to take Lemon, one spot before the Steelers at No. 21.<\/p>\n
Mike Sando of The Athletic reports the move may not have been unprecedented.<\/p>\n
Multiple unnamed sources \u201csuggested<\/a>\u201d that the Steelers have done it before. <\/p>\n \u201cThey think they are tying up the phone lines so the other team moves on because they can\u2019t get in touch with the player,\u201d one unnamed executive told Sando. \u201cAll it takes is you to call the player, and if another team calls the agent and they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s on the phone with so-and-so,\u2019 now they know who you\u2019re picking.\u201d<\/p>\n Either way, there\u2019s a belief that it\u2019s not something that should be done.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t make the call until you\u2019re on the clock,\u201d another unnamed executive said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n Former Eagles executive Jake Rosenberg tweeted the day after the draft that the move violates the rules<\/a>. The NFL, responding to a question regarding the practice, said this: \u201cThe league reviews all aspects of the Draft the week after its conclusion<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the most unusual stories that emerged from the 2026 draft in Pittsburgh originated in Pittsburgh, where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-618186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618186","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=618186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}