Steelers’ Pat Freiermuth Reveals He Thought Jaguars Would Draft Him in 2021

The former Penn State tight end was a common mock to the Jaguars last season; turns out, the eventual Steeler himself thought he was bound to be a Jaguar.

With the No. 45 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, the Jacksonville Jaguars announced Stanford offensive tackle Walker Little as their newest rookie. And unbeknownst to everyone else, nobody was more surprised by the pick than Penn State tight end Pat Freiermuth.

On a podcast with Adam Breneman, Freiermuth revealed what many assumed at the time: he expected to be the Jaguars' selection at No. 45 overall. But Freiermuth says he didn't just think that due to his connection to then-Jaguars tight ends coach and former Penn State tight ends coach Tyler Bowen.

“I really thought I was gonna go to Jacksonville really with Coach Bowen,” Freiermuth said. “They called me and they were like, ‘Hey, we’re going to draft you at this spot (45).”

"And they said the pick was in and I was like ... I looked at my phone, I didn't get a call from Jacksonville." 

Instead of selecting Freiermuth like many thought at the time, the Jaguars selected Little. Little started his career backing up Cam Robinson but did start three games at left tackle and is now expected to compete for a starting job at right tackle in 2022.

“Obviously, when you’re looking at tape from two years ago, you had one game to go by in ’19 and he played really well against Northwestern," Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke said after the team drafted Little, who had played just one game in two seasons. 

"He’s just a guy that’s going to have to get in here and go to work in the weight room, on the field, technique, all those things that you lose when you’re not out on the field. He’s going to start from a little bit behind the eight ball. It’s our job to get him up to speed as quickly as we can and [we’re] very confident we can do that.”

As for the tight end position that was still left vacant after the No. 45 overall pick, Baalke had this to say. 

"I don’t know. I hate to even speculate on it. We’re always looking. You’re always looking at every avenue you can to improve the football team. You have the draft, you have trades, you have free agency, you have cut downs. There’s a lot of different ways and we’re monitoring every situation we can to see if we can improve the football team," he said.

“We like where we’re at. What do we have, five picks left I think, and there’s still players on the board that we like at the tight end position and at other positions, so we’ll figure it out. You can’t fill every position with one pick. It’s a process, so we just have to go through a process and let it materialize.”

The Jaguars did end up selecting a tight end, picking Ohio State tight end Luke Farrell in the fifth round at No. 145 overall. Farrell went on to play in 15 games, starting four and playing 27% of the team's offensive snaps for the season. He finished the year with seven catches for 56 yards. 

Freiermuth, who also said he thought he was going to be picked by the Titans at No. 53 overall, was ultimately picked by the Steelers at No. 55 overall. He finished his rookie year with 60 catches for 497 yards (8.3 yards per catch) and seven touchdowns. 

As for Freiermuth's near Jaguars career, "I am happy I didn't go there," Freiermuth said.