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Brooke Pryor
PITTSBURGH — The most influential person of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2025 NFL draft wasn’t sitting in the team war room. He wasn’t even on the other end of any of the seven phone calls made by Mike Tomlin to his draftees over the three-day event.
Instead, he was elsewhere, perhaps at his Malibu home, sitting on his deck watching dolphins frolic in the Pacific. Or maybe in a dark cave pondering his future, or even at a Costa Rican retreat searching for clarity in holistic healing rituals.
Aaron Rodgers isn’t a member of the Steelers, but the team assembled its 2025 draft class as if he soon would be.
“We’re still kind of getting the same signals that we’ve been getting recently,” team owner and president Art Rooney II told Steelers Nation Radio, the team’s flagship program, on Friday night. “He does want to come here, so I do think we may get word soon.”
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Despite the Steelers’ repeated insistence that Rodgers would not influence their draft strategy, their actions in the 2025 draft speak louder than the words uttered by team brass. Passing on a quarterback four times before finally selecting 24-year-old developmental prospect Will Howard out of Ohio State in the sixth round suggests Rodgers was very much present in their decision-making process.
“We did not factor in whether Aaron is coming or not into that,” Rooney said of the team’s draft to that point. “If we do draft a quarterback — and we still might — it’s probably not going to be somebody who is going to start for us this year. It’s going to be somebody who is developing and may play down the road.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s not somebody who is going to have a big impact [this year] if we draft a quarterback.”
At the time of Rooney’s interview, the team was still 20 hours away from selecting Howard, but the owner’s words still appeared true with the pick. Though Howard has a national championship pedigree and four years of FBS football on his résumé, he doesn’t project as a day one starter. Despite completing an impressive 73% of his pass attempts at Ohio State, Howard still needs work to correct the inconsistent throwing mechanics on display in his combine performance and improve his processing speed to adapt to NFL defenses. The Steelers had plenty of opportunities to draft higher-rated prospects, yet each time, they elected to address areas they viewed as more pressing.
That suggests that either the Steelers are incredibly confident Rodgers will sign in Pittsburgh or they strongly believe — far more than those outside the organization — that Best of NFL Nation
April 26, 2025, will live in Ahmed Hassanei’s memory as a special day for more than one reason.
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First, Hassanei officially entered the National Football League ranks when the Detroit Lions made him pick No. 196 in the 2025 draft, selecting the defensive end in the sixth round Saturday.
But the memorable moment didn’t end when Hassanei got off the phone with the Lions — because he then proceeded to get down onto one knee and proposed to his girlfriend.
Hassanei’s draft-day call with Detroit coach Dan Campbell likely won’t be soon forgotten by Lions fans either. The former Boise State Broncos pass rusher gained notice for his passionate promise to his new coach.
“I’ll die for you coach,” Hassanei said. “I will die on that field for you. I promise I would.”
The clip of Hassanei’s call with Campbell has over 350,000 views on X.
Hassanei is now the first Egyptian to be drafted into the NFL. He amassed 22 sacks across his final two seasons at Boise State.
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Daniel Oyefusi
The Cleveland Browns ended Shedeur Sanders’ surprising slide on Day 3 of the NFL draft Saturday, making him the second quarterback they selected this weekend.
The Browns traded up with the Seattle Seahawks to select Sanders with the 144th overall pick in the fifth round Saturday. Cleveland gave Seattle its 166th and 192nd picks.
After being selected, Sanders posted to X: “Thank you GOD.”
Shilo and Shedeur dancing after Shedeur got drafted by the Cleveland Browns.
(via shilosanders/Twitch) pic.twitter.com/qPrVXCoF4c
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 26, 2025
“I would say I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity throughout everything,” Sanders said during a conference call with local reporters. “I don’t ever focus on the negative or even think about the negative because the positive happened so fast and it’s a change of emotions. For me, it was just playing quarterback. That’s what it’s about. You can’t be up, too low or anything. You got to be able to celebrate. And when we score a touchdown, we celebrate for a little bit. Now it’s back to time to work, it’s time to go.”
The Browns were linked to Sanders after spending extensive time with him throughout the draft process but ultimately passed on him multiple times. Cleveland traded back with the Jacksonville Jaguars from its No. 2 slot to No. 5, getting a trade package that included the 36th pick (which the team used on running back Quinshon Judkins) and a 2026 first-round pick. Cleveland selected defensive tackle Mason Graham with the fifth overall pick.
The Browns passed on Sanders again at the end of the third round, selecting quarterback Dillon Gabriel with the 94th pick. When asked why the team opted not to go with Sanders, general manager Andrew Berry on Friday night noted that there were four rounds remaining and that he remained impressed with Sanders. A team source said that despite the pick of Gabriel, Sanders remained on the team’s board.
Berry told reporters Saturday that as the team entered Day 3, there were discussions about possibly targeting Sanders if he continued to fall. Berry said there was an early run on some of the players that the team had targeted in the final rounds and as Sanders continued to be available, the decision to trade up for him came together quickly.
“We talk oftentimes about quarterback being the most important position in the sport,” Berry said. “We obviously spent a lot of time with Shedeur throughout the process. He’s highly accurate, can play well from the pocket, very productive college career. And we felt like it wasn’t necessarily the plan going into the weekend to select two quarterbacks, but we do believe in best player available, we do believe in positional value. We didn’t necessarily expect him to be available in the fifth round. So, we love adding competition to every position room and adding him to compete with guys that are already in there, we felt like that was the appropriate thing to do.”
Berry later said: “Once it got to a point where it felt like it was a pretty steep discount, we just felt like, especially relative to the alternative ways that we could use this selection, this made the most sense.”
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Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said earlier in the week that every player in the quarterback room will compete to be the starter. This offseason, the Browns acquired Follow the 2025 NFL draft
During the predraft process, the Browns met with Sanders at the East-West Shrine Bowl and again at the NFL scouting combine. Cleveland also hosted Sanders on a visit and then a large contingent traveled to Boulder, Colorado, to have dinner with him and Hunter the night before their pro day workout. “The people they were genuine. It was real cool,” Sanders said of his visit to the Browns’ facility in March. “So, I left that visit knowing that if that was the place for me, I would feel real comfortable with what they have in place.” A four-year starter in college — Sanders spent his first two seasons at FCS Jackson State, playing for his father before transferring to Colorado to follow him — Sanders led the FBS with a 74% completion rate last season, and his 37 passing touchdowns were second most in the FBS. A second-team All-American selection, Sanders was named the 2024 Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year and won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award as the nation’s top upperclassman quarterback. Sanders was the sixth quarterback to be taken in the draft, following Cam Ward, Jaxson Dart, Tyler Shough, Jalen Milroe and Gabriel. “The main thing I’m just proving,” Sanders said, “I’m just proving coach Stefanski and Mr. Berry that they’re right, that they’re right about picking me. That I’m a good decision, that I’m a good draft pick for them.”
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Rob Demovsky
GREEN BAY, Wis. — It’s hard to say which was more stunning: the surreal sight of the NFL draft in the league’s smallest city or the fact that the host Green Bay Packers broke a two-decade-plus streak of skipping receivers in the first round.
Much to the delight of the Packers-heavy crowd jammed between Lambeau Field and the draft stage, the home team selected wide receiver Matthew Golden of Texas with the 23rd pick in the draft Thursday night. It was the first time since 2002 (with Javon Walker) that Green Bay used a first-round pick on a receiver.
As soon as team president Mark Murphy, who announced the pick, began by saying “for the first time since 2002 …” there was bedlam in the crowd.
Golden even took to the stage and shouted: “Green Bay, it’s time.”
“I really sent in a different name, but Mark just announced what he announced,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst joked afterward.
“I didn’t think about any of that until he got up there and you kind of saw the crowd; they’re all Green Bay fans. You heard the chants and all that stuff, it was really cool, but I’ll just be honest with you, I didn’t think anything like that. We were just watching the board, we had a couple players we were discussing, there were trade opportunities, things like that, so you’re going through all of that and just trying to do what’s right for the Packers. None of that really came before me like that, but afterwards it did. It was just kind of like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty neat.'”
