If the Pittsburgh Steelers’ goal is to draft a quarterback in the first round, there is a new sense of urgency in the situation after some late-breaking news in the process. The New Orleans Saints were already interested in quarterbacks, but now their intentions are more obvious following the news of Derek Carr’s shoulder injury.

“You could waste a year if you’re the Pittsburgh Steelers, if you just sit there at 21 and cross your fingers that [Aaron] Rodgers is a done deal,” Dan Orlovsky said via ESPN’s Get Up this morning. “You could waste T.J. Watt’s last year under contract. You could waste another Cam Heyward season. You could waste another Minkah Fitzpatrick season. You could waste the first year of DK Metcalf.

“If you’re the Steelers and you’re just playing this waiting game, I think now this makes you even more likely and more urgent to be, I gotta get ahead [of] number nine. I have to no matter what,” Orlovsky added.

Moving up 13 spots in the first round would be very expensive, and it’s unclear how the Steelers would even pull that off without a second-round pick. According to draft trade value charts, the No. 8 pick (1600) is double the value of the No. 21 pick (800).

That is especially true in the 2025 NFL Draft, where the talent levels off pretty quickly outside of the top 20 or so players. Buccaneers GM Jason Licht said there isn’t much of a difference between the second rounders and the fourth rounders this year and hypothesized there won’t be many trades this year as a result.

According to the trade value chart, the sum of all the Steelers’ other picks is only 271 total value. They would either need to trade away a player like George Pickens to recoup additional value or start pawning off 2026 value to make it happen. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to trade away a 2026 pick with all of the compensatory picks coming the Steelers’ way, but it could cost more than you think to trade up as far as Orlovksy is suggesting.

The Steelers will just have to ask themselves how much they believe in their current team and how badly they want to avoid wasting one of the last years of the defensive core being all together on the roster.

“The Steelers better figure out a way to get him an elite QB because it feels like the elite parts of his career are kind of wasting away without an elite QB to go along with this team,” Orlovsky said.

Watt has been an elite talent for the past several years, yet he doesn’t have a single playoff win to his name. Even J.J. Watt, who played on some hapless Houston Texans and Arizona Cardinals teams, was a part of three playoff wins.

If Aaron Rodgers signs, this becomes a much easier question to answer. The sense of urgency to land a quarterback early would go away and there’d be no reason to trade up unless they truly loved Shedeur Sanders. I don’t know if I would still classify him as elite, but he would be the best quarterback the Steelers have worked with since Ben Roethlisberger’s elbow injury.