When Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider agreed to DK Metcalf’s trade demand this offseason, the GM didn’t make the wide receiver any promises. For the Seahawks to trade Metcalf, the trade was going to have to make sense for Seattle.
The Pittsburgh Steelers appeared to leave little doubt that the Seahawks would get a trade offer they’d like.
While appearing on the 3 and Out podcast with John Middlekauff, Schneider suggested Steelers really wanted to acquire Metcalf.
“We told him we would conceded to his wishes and no promises, but we’ll see where it goes,” Schneider said about Metcalf’s trade request.
“Pittsburgh, Omar [Khan] and those guys were really aggressive.”
The Steelers sent their 2025 second-round pick (No. 52 overall) to Seattle for Metcalf. That was considerable draft capital for a 27-year-old receiver.
Draft picks aren’t guaranteed to hit, but second-rounders are very valuable. Pittsburgh landed starting center Zach Frazier at No. 51 overall in the second round during the 2024 Draft.
A late-round draft pick exchange was also part of the trade. The Steelers received No. 185 overall in the sixth round while the Seahawks got the No. 223 pick in the seventh.
Interestingly, the Steelers drafted quarterback Will Howard at No. 185 overall.
After the trade, the Steelers immediately signed Metcalf to a four-year, $132 million extension. The deal will pay him a $33 million average annual salary.
Steelers Break WR Draft Tradition
Under previous general manager Kevin Colbert, the Steelers had a near-yearly draft tradition to grab a receiver on Day 2 of the draft.
New general manager Omar Khan followed that tradition last year. In the third round of the 2024 NFL Draft, the Steelers selected Roman Wilson.
Essentially, the Steelers continued that tradition this year as well because DK Metcalf cost the team a second-round pick. But trading for a big personality receiver and then agreeing to pay him a massive contract was previously unprecedented in Steelers history.
Khan, though, is putting his own finger prints on the organization, as he enters his fourth season as general manager.
Khan aggressively pursuing Metcalf is a sign that he isn’t going to hesitate to build Pittsburgh’s roster the best way he sees fit and not with the same methods Colbert did. The GM may have also been aggressive with the Metcalf trade because of the team’s less than stellar receiving depth chart.
Khan Acquired DK Metcalf to Then Part With George Pickens?
With the Metcalf acquisition, the Steelers finally found a suitable WR2. More accurately worded, Metcalf was set to be Pittsburgh’s new WR1, and fourth-year wideout George Pickens would be the Steelers’ new WR2 or really WR1A.
But less than two months after acquiring Metcalf, the Steelers traded Pickens to the Dallas Cowboys for future draft capital.
It’s unclear if dealing Pickens was Khan’s plan from the beginning of the offseason. According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, it may have become Khan’s plan once the team began pursuing quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
“His maturity issues were well-known within Pittsburgh’s locker room and front office. So, the Steelers made the evaluation that Pickens and Rodgers probably would not hit it off,” wrote Fowler.
However, Fowler also specifically wrote that the Steelers traded Pickens “for a few reasons.” So, this wasn’t a case where Rodgers didn’t want Pickens, and the team fulfilled that wish.
But regardless of the reason, the Steelers wouldn’t have been able to move on from Pickens until they added another firmly established receiver to the roster.
That could be another reason why Khan and the Steelers pursued Metcalf so aggressively.
