When the Steelers elected not to keep DeMarvin Leal on the 53-man roster, they did something they had rarely done in almost a decade. For only the second time since 2017, they waived a top-three draft pick. And even this case is different from that one, as we’ll discuss below.
Leal is the first top-three draft pick waived by the Steelers under these circumstances since Justin Layne in 2022. A 2019 third-round pick, Layne simply never developed, failing to make the roster in his fourth season. He did go on the play in the NFL later that season, but never signed with a team in 2023.