Steelers 2026 Draft Class: Training Camp Report Card After Week One

Alan Saunders reviews the entire Steelers 2026 draft class after the first week of training camp. First-round pick Max Iheanachor has looked better than expected, while second-rounder Jeremy Bernard faces a tougher path to early playing time with Roman Wilson playing well. Third-rounder Drew Allar shows his big arm but remains erratic, and Jennings Dunker has been stuck with the third team at guard. Saunders also discusses Gabriel Rubio as a sixth-round surprise pushing for a roster spot, Cade McGinnis's struggles at receiver despite being the team's returner, and why the class still feels like it falls a bit short of expectations given the draft capital invested.

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Video Transcript

Hey folks, good morning and welcome to an episode of Steelers' Morning Rush.

I'm Alan Saunders.

It is Friday, August 7th.

Pittsburgh Steelers are practicing today at St. Vincent College for the eighth time in training camp, but not open to the public today as was scheduled rain forcing the team indoors.

Still TBD on what that means for us and the rest of the Steelers.

Pete, but we'll go with the flow.

Uh, Mike McCarthy talking here shortly this morning.

I uh wanted to take a minute to talk about the 2026 NFL draft class in Pittsburgh Steelers, which I was fairly skeptical of.

And I had talked when we were talking about Max with me and me earlier this week about thinking that he is a good bit ahead of where I expected him to be right now as a rookie and he's shown me a lot more than I expected to see at this training camp from him already even though we only had two full padded practices before he got hurt on Thursday.

Obviously, we don't have any updates about Max's status at this point.

But I'll come I want to run down the rest of the NFL draft class from the Steelers this year and talk about their standing, where they are, and if I've really changed my mind about the way the class falls as a whole as things stand right now.

Second round pick Jeremy Bernard has been a guy that I think since the day he's come into Pittsburgh has been a very high level rookie.

I haven't really expected anything less out of him.

He's been extremely good even though he's been a little quiet on some days just because he hasn't been getting a lot of reps with the ones.

I think the back uh the slot corner uh slot wide receiver battle has been a lot more about Roman Wilson doing every everything he possibly can to hold off Jeremy Bernard, then Bernard being bad.

So, I mean, I think I'm probably a little less bullish on Bernard getting like big touches and being a big part of the offense early on in his rookie year than I was when they drafted him, but it's not because I'm down on Bernard at all.

It's just because Roman Wilson has really looked like a different player this training camp and has really done a nice job of holding him off.

So, I mean, I'm not I haven't changed my thought about the player or the draft pick, but in terms of his ability to make an early impact, that was looking like a position that was kind of wide open and now I think Roman Wilson has done a nice job of of closing it in many ways.

The third round picks, you know, Drew Allard, I think is pretty much what I expected.

There you can see the big arm, you'll also see it's very erratic and you know Mike McCarthy taking a to the studs approach with his footwork means that it's probably not going to get less erratic right away.

That's going to take a million reps to work itself out and for him to get comfortable throwing the football a different way.

Uh, maybe there'll be an improvement.

Once he does, we'll see.

Also, think the big thing with Allard that sort of uh sort of damically he's hanging over is at some point they're going to put him in a high pressure situation where so many times when he was at Penn State, he crumbled.

And uh, you know, while he's struggling through training camp, this is low stakes.

You know, so sometimes there's going to be some pressure added, and we haven't really seen that play out yet.

and won't really for for quite some time.

We'd be pretty surprised if we see Allar on the field this year.

Again, this is all basically what I thought was going to happen when they drafted him.

Been a little disappointed in Jennings Dunker so far, although maybe he'll get an opportunity with Stephen Jones out with an injury.

He missed uh Thursday's practice with an undisclosed ailment.

Uh Dunker, I thought had a real chance to earn the starting right guard job coming out of a training camp.

If not, coming out of training camp to put himself in a position to take over for Spencer Anderson early in the season.

Not only has he done that, he isn't even close.

He's been with the third team up until Thursday and it was only because of injury.

He wasn't still with the third team.

When I've you know when I see them out there, the pass protection looks sketchy.

And then look, this is a guy who's making a big transition.

He's moving from college to the NFL.

He's moving from tackle to guard.

He's moving from an offense that didn't the pass was a literal four-letter word and and a metaphorical four-letter word.

So an offense is going to throw the ball way more that it's going to run the ball.

So, there's a lot of transition for Dunker and certainly it's not like it's a bad pick if he doesn't play this year.

Uh, but he's not as close to that starting role as I thought.

And while Spencer Anderson has gotten every rep at right guard and and I think he's been pretty good.

I don't think it's not like a Roman Wilson situation where I'm seeing things from Anderson that I've never seen before.

He looks like the guy I expected him to be.

Dunker just hasn't been close and that's a little disappointing.

Dylan Everett, the other the final third round pick has been extremely extremely competitive throughout training camp.

He gets fed a lot of good reps and he's been very you know he he's had a battle.

He's gone up against DK Metcalf.

He's gone up against Michael Pittman.

It's not been easy for him.

There have been some bad losses.

That's about what I expected.

Honestly, I like the player Daylon Everett.

I didn't see how they were going to get him on the field this year and I still don't.

He looks like quarterback six.

In the fact that Brandon Eckles and Asante Samuel ahead of him have both played really well.

makes it to me even less likely that we see him on the field this year, but I still like the trajectory of the player.

I just don't know how and when Steelers think they're going to be able to use him.

Cade McGinnis, the fourth round pick, has been the team's starting kick and punt returner as everyone expected.

I was on the second team when they put out that depth chart that Mike McCarthy told us all to ignore on Wednesday at wide receiver.

That has not been the way things have gone at training camp.

A real struggle at wide receiver for Cade McGinnis at times.

He does get open.

I will say that please.

We knew wasn't tall.

He doesn't jump very well, which I think is something that I probably didn't pick up on from the tape and from watching him at the Shrine Bowl that has stood out to me so far at training camp.

And so he has a really really small catch radius.

And you know when you're dealing with erratic quarterback sometimes, been very difficult to get the ball in his hands.

Um and so you know he's a guy who was a who's going to be a yak player if if he's successful in the the NFL.

That's what it's going to have to be.

And if they're having a hard time getting the ball in his hands, that's going to be tough.

I will say I haven't seen a ton of things he ran one jet sweep and it was a tackle for loss, but I mean I haven't seen a ton of like manufactured type of touches, screens, jets, things like that where it's just like hey get the ball to this guy and let him go run.

Haven't seen in them give him a ton of that.

He's mostly just doing the same job that Roman Wilson and Jeremy Bernard are trying to do and not having as good a time of it as those guys are by far.

Wigan's 53 man roster spot appears to be significantly secure because he's the only point returner in kick return.

They have they did use Roman Wilson back there a little bit and he fumble the other day.

You know Eli Haydenreich who will get to it in a minute.

Doesn't look like he's in good shape to make the team.

So Wigan still feels pretty safe to make the team and be a regular contributor on special teams.

But I'm not liking the idea of him being a significant contributor, wide receiver, at least as a rookie, seems to be that there's a lot of work to do there.

Riley Noakowski, this pick was a real hit scratch to me as well, uh taking a full back in the fifth round.

And um, you know, I thought maybe hey, he would become position versatile and he would play a lot of tight end in addition to full back, since he mostly played tight end at Indiana and sort of fill that Connor Hayward role where he was the team's third tight end and also the full back and also played special teams.

That made a lot of sense in my head.

However, Robert Brittanyan has probably outsnapped him at tight end 100 to 1.

And so I don't I I don't see that happening.

No Akashi has gotten a lot of work the last couple of days as a traditional hand of the ground full back.

How much are they going to use a full back and are they going to be able to use a roster spot on a full back and a pretty tight offensive skill position crunch?

I don't know.

Uh he He has been working on pump team as one of the upbacks I believe.

So I mean that's a that's a top tier special team's job and he will need to do that to make the team but I still don't see the vision for how much they're going to be able to use Riley Noveckowski right now and and in the future it's some other pick that I still I'm not real sure about.

You know that's that was sort of the issue when they made it.

Gabriel Rubio was draft pick in the sixth round who came completely out of nowhere.

wasn't ranked in the top 500.

But he's looked pretty darn good.

I mean he's to me pushing Dean Lowry for the sixth defensive line spot which is not just on the 53 man roster but a helmet on game days and the part of the regular rotation.

Looks like he's a dude who can bat down some passes.

He's really long.

He can play some special teams as Smithy mentioned.

I think maybe a good field goal block guy.

I think he is a significant better player than sort of the draft community gave him credit for.

I think this still is picked up on something that that the general knowledge missed.

That doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to you know I guess he's a six round defensive line.

I'm not saying he's going to be a starter but if he's a rotational piece in his rookie year, I think that pick now becomes a win.

Robert Serigne Jennings has played an awful lot at free safety and strong safety with the Steelers lacking significant depth at those positions and it has not gone particularly well to this point.

I I still think he's going to continue to get chances.

Um and I'm not going to write a player off as a rookie just because he's not able to take advantage of those chances, see Robin Wilson.

Um but it is a bit, you know, uh disappointing that you give a guy an opportunity hasn't really been able to grasp them with any kind of real playmaking uh ability or anything like that and he has gotten lost in coverage a few times as well.

Eli, how I'd like, I have not seen him do anything that I consider to be a negative, but the number of opportunities for him has been extraordinarily limited and then a hamstring injury that cuts him to miss Thursday's practice really pushes things back.

I have a real hard time seeing him make the 53 man roster at this point.

And considering he's transitioning from slot receiver in a gadget offense to running back in the NFL, I do not think that was the best way to get him on the field quickly.

It seems like this might be a project the Steelers are looking at being you know a red shirt year where they're going to give him a year in the practice squad and let him adapt to the running back position.

Makes a lot of sense to me but I don't see how he makes the 53 right now even though he is currently the team's starting quarterback.

So I went through the draft class one by one after the first week of training camp and I would say I feel a little bit better about the draft class just because a Hanocour does not feel so much like a wasted pick in his rookie year.

I do see the opportunity for him to start this season.

It doesn't feel like it would be a huge stretch for him to pass Dylan Cook at this point.

The rest of this draft class is going to have very minimal contributions though to the 2026 dealers and Jeremy Bernard having a less obvious path to contributing.

Um, makes a little bit stranger.

I do see a couple of starters down the road and Bernard and Everett.

But that's really it and and and Dunker.

And um and so if you get four starters and amateur alert uh how much are Everett, Dunker, Bernard, that's that's pretty good, but um probably not when you have the seventh most draft capital in the class.

Uh, to me it's still falling a little bit short.

None of those guys to me really project as like pro ball type player, star type players.

So, uh we'll see how things go.

Maybe like like I said, feel a little bit better about things because of Max Honnacher.

Obviously, the Steelers need him to be healthy now.

We'll see where they go with that.

We'll talk to Mike McCarthy.

All right, that's it for this morning.

Big Mike coming up shortly and then practice indoors from St. Vincent College Moore.

After practice, me and Smithy and Brendan Howe all here.

So I think we'll probably do just Brendan on the practice report and then me and Smithy on afternoon driver.

We'll see how things go.

Maybe we'll just get the whole group together.

Until then, thanks for listening.

Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.

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