The NFL draft’s trip to Pittsburgh ends with record crowds and a late emotional jolt
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Jermod McCoy’s lengthy wait to hear his name called at the NFL draft came to a quick end on Saturday.
The fact that the call came at all for Eli Heidenreich — and from the Pittsburgh native’s hometown Steelers no less — gave what can sometimes be a ho-hum final day of the league’s marquee offseason event a dash of electricity … and more than a dash of the feels.
The Las Vegas Raiders started Day 3 by taking McCoy with the first pick of the fourth round, taking a small gamble that the Tennessee cornerback will return to form after missing all of last season with a torn ACL.
Lingering health concerns appeared to make teams reticent to take a supremely athletic defensive back with a sub-4.40 40-yard dash time. Watching three rounds roll by without getting a call wasn’t exactly McCoy’s idea of a good time.
“I was prepared for whatever happened, but, I mean, I would’ve been excited to go higher, for sure, because, I mean, I had a good pro day, ran some good times and just did good things like that,” McCoy said. “But, I mean, I was prepared for whatever happened. Because, I mean, it’s not in my control.”
The pick reunites McCoy — in a way at least — with top overall pick Fernando Mendoza. McCoy’s first career collegiate interception came against Mendoza while McCoy was at Oregon State and Mendoza was playing at California.
McCoy viewed having his stock drop as a slight that will fuel him as he looks to regain the form that had him on a first-round trajectory before the injury.
“I feel like I learned about myself, it’s just like, I feel like I’m super mentally strong,” he said. “I feel I’ve just been through a lot. I got a story that I’m still trying to tell.”
McCoy isn’t the only one.
Heidenreich, Navy’s all-time leading receiver who starred at Mount Lebanon High — less than 10 miles away from Acrisure Stadium — walked onto the stage in his service dress uniform to a massive roar after Pittsburgh used a seventh-round pick to bring him home.
“It’s the greatest moment of my life,” Heidenreich said. “This is the greatest city in the world with the greatest people in the world. I couldn’t be any happier.”
For higher-profile players selected in rounds four through seven, the overwhelming feeling was likely closer to relief.
Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik, who began his last season with the Tigers with Heisman Trophy and national title hopes, only to endure a nightmarish fall in which Clemson went 7-6, went to the New York Jets with the 110th pick.
It would be another 139 picks before LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier could exhale. Things might have worked out for Nussmeier, whose patience was rewarded after being selected by the Kansas City Chiefs and head coach Andy Reid.
The fanfare of Thursday night’s opening round — replete with a walk down the red carpet for the top prospects who will be tasked to be contributors very quickly — was long gone by Saturday.
Perhaps no player had a more symbolic experience of what Day 3 can feel like than Iowa wide receiver Kaden Wetjen, taken by the host Steelers in the fourth round.
There was no draft party for Wetjen. No camera set up in his family’s living room to capture the moment. Instead, Wetjen went golfing while his parents headed to the Drake Relays to watch his younger brother compete.
“So, the plan was to kind of text everybody after I got the information and have everybody over tonight,” Wetjen said. “So thankfully it happened earlier than we expected, and I didn’t shank it into the pond after I got picked, so everything’s going good.”
The fifth round included Ohio State defensive back Lorenzo Styles Jr., following brother Sonny — selected seventh overall by Washington on Thursday — into the pros when he was taken by New Orleans.
The Denver Broncos made Buffalo’s Red Murdock this year’s “Mr. Irrelevant,” taking him with the 257th and final pick.
The final day of the league’s offseason festival began with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell telling the rain-soaked fans outside Acrisure Stadium that Pittsburgh had set a record for attendance on Thursday and Friday, with more than 600,000 people packing themselves into the city’s North Shore and nearby Point State Park.
The fans were listening. The league said the final attendance number finished north of 800,000, breaking the record of 775,000 set two years ago in Detroit. The draft heads to the National Mall in Washington D.C., next April.
Most of the crowd came to the city’s North Shore wearing Steelers black-and-gold and waving the club’s signature Terrible Towels.
They waved in abundance when each of the team’s Day 2 picks made their way to the stage tucked in the stadium’s northeast parking lot, including former Penn State quarterback Drew Allar, who was a somewhat surprising third-round selection.
“I’m really excited,” Allar said. “Enjoyed my four years at Penn State … But I’m really excited to represent Steeler fans and Steeler nation and really win a lot of games.”
That part might not come right away.
Allar joins a quarterback room that includes veteran Mason Rudolph and former Ohio State star Will Howard, a sixth-round choice by the Steelers in 2025. And that doesn’t include Aaron Rodgers, who very well could rejoin the club at some point before preparations for the 2026 season turn serious.
That work will start in earnest on Sunday, after the league spent three days in a city whose football roots run deep.
Those roots were exposed in the final hour, when Heidenreich’s homecoming provided an emotional topper to a week that was years in the making.
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AP Sports Writer Mark Anderson in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
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