The Pittsburgh Steelers may have landed themselves in hot water by jumping the gun for a draft pick before the Philadelphia Eagles could swoop in.
The Steelers were preparing to draft Makai Lemon out of USC with the No 21 pick when they were suddenly leapfrogged by the Eagles during Thursday’s first round of the NFL Draft.
Philadelphia, who entered the night with the No 23 pick, dramatically traded away both of their fourth-round selections to the Dallas Cowboys, who had the No 20 pick, in order to move up three spots and snatch the wide receiver from right under Pittsburgh’s noses.
The dramatic move stunned Lemon and fans alike, but no one was as caught unaware as the Steelers who could now find themselves in the firing line.
That’s according to Jake Rosenberg, a former long-time Eagles executive, who claimed that Pittsburgh could have been in violation of the rules by having Lemon on the phone before they were on the clock.
‘Clubs that are not “on the clock” may have discussions with the representative of one or more draft-eligible players not yet selected (or discussion with the players themselves) regarding the player’s interest in playing in the League, playing with a particular club or type of club, the player’s health, or other such non-financial matters, so long as these discussions do not interfere with discussions between a player and the club that is “on the clock,”‘ Rosenberg, who left the Eagles two years ago, posted on X.
The Pittsburgh Steelers (pictured: GM Omar Khan) may have broken NFL Draft news
Running back Makai Lemon was left stunned after the Philadelphia Eagles traded up to draft him while he was on the phone with the Steelers during the first round of the draft
Per Rosenberg’s post, with the Steelers not on the clock and speaking to Lemon while the Eagles were attempting to contact him to make their pick, the team may have been afoul of the rules.
‘When the draft happens, there’s a lot of excitement that goes on,’ Steelers general manager Omar Khan said of the incident on Saturday night.
‘There was no ill intent when we made the call. As I mentioned, we have a good process, and you trust your board. The draft throws curveballs at you in every round, trust me. … Things sort of take care of themselves.
‘It happens throughout the draft, some public, some not.’
In an astonishing moment, footage from the NFL Network showed Lemon speaking to Khan on the phone in the Draft room, before he asked his team: ‘Hey, why is Philly calling me?’
His agent then rushed over and told him: ‘Philly just traded for you! This is Philly [on the phone]. They just traded for you.’
The late twist sparked frantic scenes in Lemon’s Draft room as both the player and his family struggled to keep up with the madness.
‘I answered the phone and it was the Steelers,’ Lemon said. ‘My phone kept ringing. I look and it was the Eagles. They traded up and they were going to pick me.
The USC wide receiver was taken by Philadelphia with the No 20 pick in dramatic fashion
Lemon’s evening at the NFL Draft proved a rollercoaster as he went from Pittsburgh to Philly
‘I feel like everything happened for a reason. They traded up, so it means a lot that they really wanted me.’
For Philly, the opportunity to land a player they expected to go in the top 10 was simply too good to pass up.
‘We kind of had a really good sense of who we thought the first 15 guys would be,’ Eagles GM Howie Roseman explained. ‘One of those guys did not go in the first 15, and he was available to us.
‘So I think for us, when we saw that, it was just trying to figure out where we can move up.’
When asked about the dramatic moment they stole him from Pittsburgh, Roseman said: ‘When we get on the clock, we immediately try to contact the player. It took us a couple minutes to contact the player and get him on the phone. That hasn’t happened very often.
‘The clock got down a little bit lower than we would have liked but we were able to get in touch with him and obviously select him.’
The Eagles selected Lemon with the 20th pick after sliding up to get a top wideout with AJ Brown on the trading block.
