Steelers Draft Penn State's Allar in Third Round as Rodgers Question Lingers

The Pittsburgh Steelers used the 70th overall pick on Penn State quarterback Drew Allar on Friday night, ending a stretch of draft silence at the position that left the league's most persistent quarterback question still hanging over the franchise. BBC Sport was first across the wire with the selection; ESPN and CBS followed within hours with context on Allar's three years as a Nittany Lions starter and on the broader offseason in Pittsburgh, where the Aaron Rodgers question has not gone away. The pick, made in the third round, gives the Steelers a developmental passer with a Big Ten résumé and a 6-foot-5 frame, and it does not, on its own, close the door on the more experienced option the front office has been mulling since March.

The third round is the part of the draft where teams either reinforce a plan or signal they are still building one. Pittsburgh's choice reads as the latter. Mel Kiper Jr.'s post-draft grades, published on ESPN, ranked the Steelers' class as a work in progress, with Allar flagged as a high-variance prospect whose arm talent survived a 2025 season in which Penn State's offensive line and run game were inconsistent. CBS's draft coverage echoed the same read: a player with first-round physical tools whose stock had slid because of production concerns and a college system that did not always ask him to carry the offence. Taking him at 70 is a bet on traits and a willingness to wait.

A roster that still needs an answer under centre

The pick arrived 24 hours after the close of a draft that ESPN's experts described as deep at the top and thin at quarterback beyond the first round. Pittsburgh entered the weekend with Russell Wilson signed to a one-year deal and Mike Tomlin's staff publicly committed to competition at the position. Allar joins a room that also includes 2024 fifth-rounder Michael Pratt and a pair of undrafted holdovers from last year's camp. The depth chart, in other words, is not the depth chart of a team that has decided who its Week 1 starter will be.

That uncertainty is the Rodgers question, and it is the question the Steelers have refused to answer on the record. The 42-year-old remains a free agent, and the franchise has not shut the door, in part because Tomlin has a history of leaning on veteran arms during transition seasons. Kiper's grade sheet, and ESPN's post-draft question column for all 32 teams, both pointed to Pittsburgh as a club whose 2026 ceiling is tied to a quarterback decision the front office has not yet made in public. Taking Allar at 70 does not foreclose Rodgers. It does, however, raise the cost of waiting on him.

What Allar actually brings

Allar started 30 games for Penn State across the 2023, 2024 and 2025 seasons. He finished his Nittany Lions career with a completion rate just below 64 percent, threw for more than 7,600 yards and added 22 rushing touchdowns, the kind of number that hints at how the coaching staff used him near the goal line. ESPN's draft question column noted that Allar posted the highest completion rate of any returning Big Ten starter on throws of 20 yards or more, a number that will travel well in an Arthur Smith offence built on shot plays and play-action depth. The same column flagged his pocket navigation as the trait most likely to need work at the next level: too clean a platform at Penn State, too few reps under NFL-style pressure.

Kiper's class-by-class grades singled out Allar's arm as the trait that justified the pick and his second-half mechanics against the blitz as the trait that keeps him out of the first round. The CBS draft coverage framed him as a classic traits-over-production prospect: a quarterback with the body, the arm and the athletic profile of a long-term starter whose college numbers, for reasons of supporting cast and scheme, never quite caught up to the tools. Pittsburgh's bet is that the gap between tools and production closes under an NFL staff.

The Rodgers shadow

No public reporting has confirmed a timeline for a Rodgers decision, and the Steelers have not commented on the Allar pick in the context of their veteran quarterback search. What the pick does, structurally, is give the front office cover. If Rodgers signs, Allar becomes a third-round developmental piece on a rookie deal, the kind of asset that almost every contending team carries. If Rodgers does not sign, the Steelers will have a longer-term option behind Wilson whose ceiling is higher than the second contract of a 36-year-old backup.

Kiper's grades and ESPN's 32-team post-draft column both framed Pittsburgh's class as conditional on the quarterback decision that has not been made. The Cowboys, by contrast, received one of Kiper's top marks after Jerry Jones authorised a defensive rebuild through a new coordinator, two aggressive trades up the board and a statement pick at cornerback, according to CBS's draft coverage. Pittsburgh's draft, by the same standard, is a quieter kind of bet: a single third-round swing on a quarterback whose development curve will determine how the 2026 season reads in November.

What to watch next

The next public data point on the Steelers' quarterback question is the start of organised team activities in mid-May, when the first-team reps will offer the clearest signal yet of how the staff views the Allar pick. Until then, the third-round selection reads as a hedge: insurance against a Rodgers decision that does not come, a developmental option if it does, and a quiet admission that the 2026 plan at the most important position in football is still being written.

Sources

• ESPN, "The best, worst and most confusing of the 2026 NFL draft: Our experts answer 29 questions" (2026-04-26)
• ESPN, "Kiper's grades for all 32 NFL draft classes: Why the Cowboys and Jets aced their picks" (2026-04-26)
• ESPN, "Postdraft questions for all 32 NFL teams: What could A.J. Brown cost Pats? Did Raiders help Fernando Mendoza? Why Ty Simpson?" (2026-04-27)
• BBC Sport, "The winners & losers from the 2026 NFL Draft" (2026-04-27)
• CBS Sports, "Cowboys, Jerry Jones place big bet on defensive overhaul in 2026 NFL Draft" (2026-04-26)

Desk note: Where the wire focused on the league-wide draft picture, Monexus zoomed in on the conditional nature of Pittsburgh's class and on how a third-round quarterback pick reshapes, rather than resolves, the franchise's veteran decision.