Steelers mock draft: Wishes come true for Pittsburgh in final 2023 NFL Draft

Steelers mock draft round 3 (pick 80): EDGE Tuli Tuipulotu

We all know how desperately the Pittsburgh Steelers lack quality edge defender depth. After T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith, there isn't another noteworthy name at the position on the roster. The team also witnessed what can happen if one of their starters goes down and there isn't a serviceable backup behind him.

For this reason, I think it's possible for Pittsburgh to dip their feet into the edge defender pool even earlier than this. After building their defense around T.J. Watt, the Steelers need to make sure that they have a respectable insurance policy in place. That's where Tuli Tuipulotu comes in.

The USC product has been linked to Pittsburgh in the past. At 6'3 1/4'' and 266 pounds with short 32 1/4'' arms, Tuipulotu won't be a fit for everyone. It's also a little bit scary that he didn't do any athletic testing prior to the NFL Draft. But it's for this reason that the Steelers have a shot at a good football player here.

Tuipulotu had outstanding production this past season with the Trojans with 22.0 tackles for a loss and 13.5 sacks in 14 games. This will be very enticing to Tomlin and Khan. The Steelers also used a pre-draft visit with Tuipulotu this offseason. He would fix the edge depth and is great value at this point.

Others considered: LB Nick Herbig, DT Gervon Dexter Sr., EDGE Zach Harrison, EDGE Isaiah Foskey,