The last time the Pittsburgh Steelers went hunting for a quarterback in the NFL Draft, they had the misfortune of doing so in one of the leanest classes in recent memory.

When Kenny Pickett was taken with the No. 20 overall pick in 2022, he was the first quarterback to go off the board. And he was the only quarterback taken before the third round. Of the nine quarterbacks drafted that year, only one remains with his drafted team, and that’s Mr. Irrelevant, Brock Purdy, with the San Francisco 49ers.

Three years later, the Steelers are expected to dip their toes back into the draft waters and use a pick on a quarterback, a position at which all three of their veteran passers from 2024 are headed to free agency.

They evaluated all of the best prospects earlier this month at the Senior Bowl and will get another chance to watch them next week at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis.

Draft analysts view the Class of 2025 as deeper than the 2022 group, although that could be considered a backhanded compliment.

“I think that the feeling would be it’s not necessarily a great class,” Greg Cosell of NFL Films said on the Ross Tucker Podcast.

The top two quarterbacks in this class are Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Miami’s Cam Ward and not necessarily in that order. They are the only two passers who have first-round grades, in NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah’s opinion.

And if Jeremiah added Ward and Sanders to the 2024 class when quarterbacks were taken with the first three picks and six of the top 12, well, they wouldn’t exactly be the headliners.

Jeremiah has Ward graded the same as Bo Nix, who was his fourth-best option last year and was the sixth quarterback selected, going to Denver at No. 12. He has Sanders graded lower than all six first-round quarterbacks from 2024: Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, J.J. McCarthy, Michael Penix and Nix.

Make no mistake, though, Jeremiah views Ward and Sanders as solid options, and they could be taken among the first five picks by teams desperate for quarterback help. He just doesn’t see them reaching Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen territory.

“That’s the age-old debate, right?” Jeremiah said on a conference call with NFL media this week. “Do you want safe and the floor or do you want kind of exciting and the upside? … It’s just the high level of quarterback play, particularly in the AFC right now, man it’s hard to go with the floor instead of the ceiling there.”

The Steelers, of course, play in a division that includes two other elite passers in the conference: Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow and Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson, a two-time MVP. Cleveland, holding the No. 2 overall pick, could be enticed to take Ward or Sanders as the Browns try to rebound from a 3-14 record.

By the time the draft arrives in late April, the Steelers will have a veteran under contract as they decide whether to pursue Russell Wilson or Justin Fields before free agency starts in mid-March. That makes the chance of them using the No. 21 overall pick on a quarterback — perhaps the third-best option in this class — an improbability.

“I haven’t been able to find that buzz out there for someone who is a quarterback who teams would want to get at the bottom of (round) one,” Jeremiah said.

Mississippi’s Jaxson Dart is the only other quarterback ranked in Jeremiah’s top 50, coming in at No. 41.

Cosell also doesn’t see another slam-dunk option in the first round that would check all of a quarterback-needy team’s boxes.

“One thing you always keep in mind when evaluating quarterbacks is everyone starts with traits and attributes,” Cosell said “Then, you have to think about how they can be deployed with their traits and attributes in an NFL offense. There are very few transcendent quarterbacks (in this class) who can do anything in any system and you line them up and play.”

The next wave of quarterbacks includes Ohio State’s Will Howard, Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard, Louisville’s Tyler Shough, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel, Texas’ Quinn Ewers and Syracuse’s Kyle McCord.

All could be second-day or early third-day options for the Steelers if they want to develop a quarterback for 2026.

Jeremiah is intrigued enough by Milroe that he could see the Steelers taking him in the draft.

“As a runner, he’s elite, elite, elite,” he said. “That’s the best trait that anybody has in this quarterback class is his ability as a runner. Just take some time and patience with him in the pass game.”

Coach Mike Tomlin gets to face Jackson twice a year, and he watched the Ravens quarterback do his part in a running assault that saw Baltimore gash the Steelers’ defense for 220 yards in the regular season and 299 in the playoffs.

And since Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement following the 2021 season, Tomlin has sought a mobile quarterback to run his offense. He thought he had two last year with Fields and Wilson.

Fields went 4-2 before handing the reins to Wilson, who helped the Steelers to a 10-3 record before the season ended with a five-game losing streak.

“If the Steelers did decide to re-sign Justin Fields and make him their quarterback going forward, I wouldn’t mind marrying Milroe up with him,” Jeremiah said. “If you’ve got Milroe potentially in the third round … having Milroe to develop behind Fields would be kind of fun just to really go all-in on that approach.”

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