When a ceremonial football was handed off Saturday, not long after the 257th pick was announced, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ duties as NFL Draft host officially ended.
Steelers executive Dan Rooney stuffed a football into the arms of former Washington quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Mark Rypien, signifying that Pittsburgh and the Steelers were off the clock.
The folks in Washington, D.C., site of the 2027 proceedings, have a difficult act to follow, according to one of the league’s top officials.
“This has been fantastic,” NFL executive vice president Peter O’Reilly said Saturday outside the draft theater as the event swung into the fifth of seven rounds. “We’re thrilled. We’re focused on getting through to the end, but it’s been an incredible two days, and the third day is kicking off well.
“Pittsburgh has been a fantastic partner.”
The draft attracted a record crowd of 805,000 over three days on the North Shore and at Point State Park, surpassing the 775,000 who attended two years ago in Detroit.
More than 320,000 were in attendance for the first round Thursday, and another 275,000 came Friday. The crowd was slightly reduced Saturday because of a steady rain that fell throughout the morning and carried into the afternoon. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell implored fans to swarm the North Shore and set a benchmark.
“If you are home, get over here,” Goodell said as he opened the third-day festivities. “We need them here.”
O’Reilly also was rooting for the record to be broken.
“This is a really special draft,” he said. “We knew it would be special, because it’s a special fan base and such a great football town.”
The draft’s third day concluded a nearly two-year process for the Steelers, who were awarded it at the 2024 annual spring meeting.
O’Reilly, a top lieutenant to Goodell, oversees major NFL business, including the draft, Super Bowl and international events. He anticipated Pittsburgh having its share of challenges for the draft.
The city’s landscape and distance between Acrisure Stadium and Point State Park, with the Allegheny River splitting the two shores, was not an issue, he said.
“We embraced that,” he said. “We made that a part of what this draft is about. You saw that, using the confluence of the rivers as a story of the draft. With the red carpet over there, and the main stage over here.
“Every draft is different, and you want to mold it to the heartbeat of the city. We tried to do that.”
The draft also featured events at Market Square, and the Arts Landing project was unveiled. The Steelers combined with government officials to christen a youth football field in Hazelwood, and Goodell toured Carnegie Mellon’s robotics center.
“Hats off to so many people that put in so much work to make this happen,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said on Steelers Nation Radio. “All over town, it’s been different parts, different pieces of the puzzle in addition to the draft theater at the North Shore.”
NFL officials incorporated Pittsburgh luminaries into the draft proceedings. For instance, actor Michael Keaton announced the Steelers’ fifth-round pick Saturday. Rocker Bret Michaels of Poison and rapper Wiz Khalifa collaborated on a concert before the second round Friday. The Steelers trotted out Hall of Fame players such as Terry Bradshaw, Mel Blount, John Stallworth, Lynn Swann and Jerome Bettis, plus former coach Bill Cowher and other current and former Steelers, as well as the Day 1 and Day 2 draft picks.
Artwork from Pittsburgh’s Burton Morris adorned the green room and tunnel that led to the draft stage.
“Those steel art pieces stood out,” O’Reilly said. “This is a steel town, and you want to recognize the grit and the players connecting those. It’s different than the Super Bowl. (The Super Bowl) is played in a stadium and it’s amazing, but for the draft, you have to meet the city’s landscape.”
Before he turned his attention to the NFL schedule release, the next big event on the league calendar, O’Reilly was looking forward to that draft football being handed over to Washington officials.
“After that Mr. Irrelevant pick, a smiling, relieved group from Pittsburgh will hand off that football to an excited but somewhat nervous group from D.C. who will be looking at it like, ‘How do we raise the bar from what Pittsburgh has been able to do?’ ”
When the 2025 draft in Green Bay ended, former Packers president and CEO Mark Murphy handed a football to Dan Rooney and Swann. It was the first time the ceremonial handoff took place on the draft stage.
“They took the baton, and they took it well,” O’Reilly said.
As for the Steelers, with the draft in the rear-view mirror, they will turn the page to another goal on their radar.
“Winning the Super Bowl is the next big thing we would like to do,” Rooney II said. “It’s high on the list.”