In a rare moment of candid reflection, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has reportedly acknowledged that the team’s 2019 decision to trade up and draft linebacker Devin Bush was the franchise’s biggest mistake of the past decade.
The statement comes amid renewed scrutiny after Bleacher Report named the Bush trade-up as the worst move the Steelers made in the last ten years. Pittsburgh famously moved up from pick 20 to 10 in the 2019 NFL Draft, sending a haul of picks to the Denver Broncos to secure Bush — a move that was, at the time, widely praised as aggressive and future-focused. Bush was projected to be the next great Steelers linebacker in the mold of Ryan Shazier, whose career was cut short by injury.
Instead, it became a cautionary tale.
“We swung for a cornerstone, and it didn’t pan out,” Tomlin said, according to a team source. “It’s fair to call it what it is — a miss. A big one.”
Bush’s rookie season showed flashes of promise. He played fast, was active around the ball, and seemed like the defensive captain-in-waiting. But after tearing his ACL in 2020, his form never fully returned. By 2022, he had lost his starting job. By 2023, he was gone — a former top-10 pick with little to show in return.
To make matters worse, the Steelers surrendered three premium draft picks for the right to select him: their 2019 first- and second-rounders, and a 2020 third-rounder. That’s a heavy price for a player who started only 48 games in Pittsburgh and didn’t make a single Pro Bowl.
“He looked completely lost after the injury,” the Bleacher Report analysis stated. “He just didn’t belong.”
The implications go beyond the field. That failed move set back the Steelers’ inside linebacker position for years, forcing the team to cycle through stopgaps and bargain free agents. It also signaled a brief departure from the team’s traditional draft philosophy — one that usually emphasized patience and letting the board fall, rather than trading up.
“We took a shot at being bold,” Tomlin reportedly said. “But bold doesn’t always mean smart.”
Since Bush’s departure, the Steelers have quietly rebuilt their linebacker core, but many fans still view the 2019 trade as a missed opportunity — one that cost Pittsburgh both assets and identity.
Bush, now out of the league and facing off-field issues, has become a symbol of what can happen when expectations meet unrecovered injury and poor fit.
For Tomlin to acknowledge the mistake — publicly or behind closed doors — speaks volumes. It’s a sign of leadership, but also a reminder that even the most stable franchises aren’t immune to draft-day regrets.
