Details on the Steelers’ trade with the Denver Broncos to get Devin Bush

Apr 2019

The Steelers have traded a first-round pick and second round picks in 2019 and a third round pick in 2020 to the Broncos to move up 10 spots in round one this year.

The Pittsburgh Steelers have not made 10 selections in a draft since 2010 and despite holding that same number of picks for the 2019 NFL Draft when it began on Thursday night, they will not match that feat again this year after agreeing to a trade with the Denver Broncos.

The Steelers sent their first-round pick (No.20), second-round pick (No.52) and a third-round pick in 2020 to the Broncos in return for their first-round pick (No.10), a selection they used on Michigan linebacker Devin Bush.

#Steelers swap first round picks (20 for 10), give Denver their second round pick (no. 52 overall) and also send the #Broncos next year’s third round pick for the opportunity to select Devin Bush. (Was told by a top 10 team earlier, it wanted swap of 1s and THIS year’s 2 and 3.)

— Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala) April 26, 2019

For those playing close attention, Kevin Colbert alluded to the team’s interest in trading up when talking to Missi Mathews of Steelers.com earlier in the week. Noting that having 10 picks was something of a luxury and that a move up would still leave Pittsburgh with eight selections, it was a clear sign that the Steelers would seriously consider trading up this year.

And while Colbert revealed during his annual pre-draft press conference on Monday that Pittsburgh does not use a chart to assess the value of a trade like many teams do, based on the current popular version of the chart created by the Dallas Cowboys in the 90’s, the Steelers appear to have made a fairly equitable deal based on the numbers.

The last time Pittsburgh moved up in the first-round of the draft was back in 2006 when they traded their first, third and fourth round picks to move up from No.32 to No.25 to select wide receiver Santonio Holmes. The only other first-round trade in the Colbert era came in 2003 when the Steelers traded their first, third and sixth round picks to move up from No.27 to No.16 to select Troy Polamalu.

The still have nine picks remaining in 2019: