After addressing the offensive with each of their first four draft picks, the Pittsburgh Steelers first turned to the inside linebacker position when looking to the defense during the 2021 NFL Draft. That was Buddy Johnson out of Texas A&M, who comes in with the immediate mission of bolstering the depth, but with a long-term vision of seizing a starting job, perhaps in 2022.
It was always his goal, his dream, to make it this far, but he wasn’t always so sure that he would get to this point—and even this far, of course, isn’t that far out.