EXCLUSIVE: Franchise Legend Names Steelers Perfect Draft Players

Ahead of the 2026 NFL Draft, Pittsburgh Steelers legend Jerome Bettis shared his thoughts on how the team should approach filling out their incoming rookie class.

In an interview with Steelers On SI's Noah Strackbein and Jacob Punturi, Bettis advocated for the organization to bypass selecting a quarterback with one of their first picks and instead bring in a prospect on Day 3 who could develop under head coach Mike McCarthy.

"What we do know about this draft is it's not top heavy on quarterbacks," Bettis said. "If I'm looking at this draft, I'm saying, 'OK, maybe I can look at a fourth-, maybe fifth-round pick, much like Will Howard was. You get 'em right in the draft and see how he develops.

"I would like at maybe in the fifth, sixth round, maybe if I really liked a guy like Carson Beck maybe in the fourth or fifth round, you may pull the trigger and say, 'you know, I like this guy, he's athletic enough, he's got size, he's got a injury history, we gotta be careful with that, so that tells you OK, later in the draft."

From there, Bettis listed a pair of offensive linemen he believes would fit Pittsburgh well in Penn State's Olaivavega Ioane and Georgia's Monroe Freeling as well as a linebacker in Georgia's CJ Allen.

"There's a couple offensive linemen that you look at and say, 'Oof, they're some really good guys,'" Bettis said. "There's a guard at Penn State [Ioane]... he's physical, and he gets after you, so there's just some guys like that. There's a guard at Georgia, Freeling I think his name is, he's a stud...

"I just see these offensive linemen as guys that I would look at and say, 'We can build a future with him.' There's a linebacker at Georgia [Allen] as well that I think would fit really well into the scheme of the Steelers. If I was drafting, I would look offensive line, I would look linebacker, quarterback, and I would try to get maybe a second-round receiver and go at it in that direction."