Steelers Rumors: Senior Bowl quarterback being linked to Pittsburgh early

Senior Bowl practices recently concluded, and already, players are being linked to certain teams. All 32 NFL clubs had members of their coaching and front office staff on hand in Mobile, Alabama for the 2024 Senior Bowl, and connections and numerous meetings have taken place. As always the Pittsburgh Steelers sent their brass to the first big event of the NFL offseason.

Mike Tomlin and Omar Khan are the two most notable members of the Steelers who were scouting the talent in Mobile this week. With hundreds of credentialed media members observing, nothing goes unnoticed.

On January 30th, an amped-up Coach Tomlin met with Bo Nix before the start of practice. By itself, this is nothing to write home about, as coaches meet with many players during Senior Bowl week.

However, following the conclusion of practices on Mobile, Dorin Dickerson of The Fan Morning Show insisted that the Pittsburgh Steelers were going to draft Bo Nix and even encouraged his followers on 'X' to bookmark his tweet.

Just before the start of the Senior Bowl, a little birdie told me that members of the Steelers staff are high on Bo Nix thanks in large part to his extremely low turnover-worthy play rate coupled with his big-play rate. This isn't hard to believe.

It's also worth noting that Marcus Mosher, who is a writer for both Pro Football Focus and The 33rd Team, listed the Pittsburgh Steelers as the 'best fit' for Nix in the 2024 NFL Draft.

While there has been no report that has come straight out to say that the Pittsburgh Steelers have a strong interest in drafting Oregon quarterback Bo Nix, we are starting to put the puzzle pieces together. However, it's worth noting that some of these whispers and predictions occurred before Senior Bowl week and prior to Arthur Smith being named as the new offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh.

Bo Nix doesn't turn the ball over... and that fits with the Steelers' philosophy

How does the Arthur Smith hiring change things? Believe it or not, this might make it more likely that the Steelers look for a different QB option in 2024. Looking at the potential options in the draft and free agency, there may be better fits with what Arthur Smith wants to do than what Nix offers, but his 51 total touchdowns and just 3 interceptions in 2023 are going to be hard for teams to ignore.

If there's something we know about Mike Tomlin is that he wants to avoid putting the ball in harm's way, and Nix has never recorded more than 7 interceptions in a season during his five years as a starter at Auburn and Oregon in college.

We don't know exactly how much truth there is to any of this, but so far, we can do some reading between the lines to see why the Pittsburgh Steelers might be interested in drafting a player like Bo Nix.