Every year, the Pittsburgh Steelers bring their scouts in for a big meeting during the summer to discuss the plans for scouting the college football season and the upcoming NFL Draft.
Last summer, when the Steelers were discussing the 2026 NFL Draft class, Arizona State tackle Max Iheanachor wasn’t exactly at the top of their list, but over the months-long process, he ended up being the player the Steelers wanted most at No. 21 overall in the first round last week.
The Steelers started the draft process thinking they’d be taking a quarterback. The 2026 NFL Draft class was expected to be exceptionally deep at the position, and the Steelers spent a lot of their time during the 2025 college football seasons scouting the top prospects:
Penn State
’s Drew Allar
, UCLA’s Nico Iamaleava
, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik
, Arizona State’s Sam Leavitt
, USC’s Jayden Maiava, Texas’ Arch Manning
, Oklahoma’s John Mateer
, Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza
, Oregon’s Dante Moore
, LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier
, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers
, Alabama’s Ty Simpson
, and Cincinnati
’s Brendan Sorsby
were all among the quarterbacks that the Steelers staff scouted in-person during the 2025 college football season.
But the quarterback class never materialized. Manning, Sellers, Iamaleava, Leavitt, Maiava, Sorsby, Mateer and Moore all went back to school, Allar and Nussmeier were injured, Klubnik struggled and only Mendoza and Simpson lived up to the initial hype as first-round quarterbacks.
The Steelers scouted Leavitt extensively, thanks to not only their interest at quarterback but a connection at Arizona State in former wide receiver Hines Ward . During an early scouting trip where Leavitt was the primary target, wide receiver Jordyn Tyson and Iheanachor also stood out to the Steelers evaluator.
The interest in Iheanachor was compounded when the Steelers contingent at the Senior Bowl was led by assistant general manager Andy Weidl . A former offensive lineman, Weidl helped build a dominant front with the Philadelphia Eagles before coming to Pittsburgh and has been the driving force in the Steelers’ offensive line rebuild of the last few years.
The Steelers big need along the offensive line this offseason was at guard, where Isaac Seumalo moved on in free agency, and Weidl was scouting guards like Gennings Dunker , who eventually became the team’s third-round pick. But the Iheanachor, playing right tackle, caught his eye.
When the quarterback class fell apart, Tyson ended up being drafted too highly for the Steelers to get their hands on him, and the Eagles sniped Makai Lemon from them, Iheanachor became a very comfortable next man up for the Steelers thanks to their extensive scouting of him, dating back to the summer.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : How Max Iheanachor Went from Total Unknown to Steelers Scouts’ Darling
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