The 2023 NFL Draft starts this Thursday after months of speculation on where prospects will end up. The Pittsburgh Steelers are one team looking to make the jumpy from frisky to contender in 2023, and adding key pieces in the draft will be paramount to building a playoff-caliber team. However, head coach Mike Tomlin believes the Steelers have relative freedom when it comes to their draft strategy.

Tomlin says that the Steelers don't have any “glaring needs,” and enter the draft with a “clean slate,” reports ESPN's Brooke Pryor. The Steelers coach believes the work that Pittsburgh did in free agency has allowed them to free up their thinking for the NFL draft.

Through poaching from other teams and re-signing players they wanted to keep, the Steelers signed the following free agents: Breiden Fehoko, Keanu Neal, Le'Raven Clark, Zach Gentry, Isaac Seumalo, Elandon Roberts, Cole Holcomb, Larry Ogunjobi, Damontae Kazee, Nate Herbig, and Patrick Peterson. All of these additions have Tomlin and the Steelers brass confident in a lenient draft strategy come Thursday.

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Pittsburgh is coming off of a season where they surpassed expectations, par for the course under Tomlin. Rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett was arguably the best first-year signal caller sans the San Francisco 49ers Brock Purdy, and he was just the tip of the iceberg that was a Pittsburgh team outperforming expectations.

Coming off of 2022, the Steel Curtain now has much higher expectations than what might have been considered in the second year of Pickett's tenure. Although they don't feel obliged to any needs in the upcoming 2023 NFL Draft, Mike Tomlin and the Steelers are looking to target prospects that can help them win now in a big season coming up in Pittsburgh.