Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman Derrick Harmon is lined up to have a huge role in his first season.
Taken with the No. 21 overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft, Harmon was brought in amid the Steelers having a major weakness along the defensive line. The hope is he can also take the torch from Cam Heyward once he hangs up his cleats.
Even though he was drafted high, it wasn’t totally clear just how involved Harmon would be early on in his first season. After all, rookies can be unpredictable.
However, Steelers defensive line coach Karl Dunbar cleared things up on the first day of mandatory minicamp on Tuesday. When addressing the media, Dunbar revealed Harmon would be a starter right off the bat.
“You can write that. He’s our starting left defensive end,” Dunbar said, per Nick Farabaugh of PennLive.com.
With Harmon written in stone, the Steelers figure to have a starting line of Harmon and Heyward at the defensive end spots, and Keeanu Benton at nose tackle, although we wouldn’t write Benton’s name in pen just yet.
Harmon took part in the team’s OTAs recently, and now the next step is to show out at mandatory minicamp, which begins on Tuesday, June 10.
The rookie is just trying to soak up everything he can ahead of his first season, and having established veterans around certainly helps his progress.
“It’s good to be around some vets, around older guys and just competing at a high level,” Harmon said. “Just trying to learn from all of those guys and ask them any questions I can.
“I don’t know what I don’t know, so I’m trying to learn this game and be dominant at this game.”
Again, rookies can be very unpredictable, so there’s no telling how good Harmon will be in Year 1. However, he clearly has the right mentality to be great.
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