Nick Herbig
Pittsburgh SteelersOVERPAIDModel Score
How good he is at what he is supposed to be doing, out of 100. Not a projection of what he will do next, and not a read on his contract. Median is about 70, and a 95 is rare. How it is built →
Season Stats · 15 games
Draft & College
He went about where consensus had him.
Covers the college seasons in our data, which does not always reach back to a player's first year.
Comps
STM Take
Tier 6 (#42) in 2024 to tier 2 (#12) breakout in 2025 is a 30-spot one-year jump that puts Herbig in the top-15 edge defender conversation for a 4th-round pick. The Wisconsin 2022 Big Ten DL of the Year award plus the Steelers' position-specific pass-rush coaching reputation appear to be the catalysts. The 2026 question is whether Herbig earns his first Pro Bowl plus holds tier 2 or better or whether the 2025 finish was a one-year context spike.
Herbig came out of Wisconsin as the Pittsburgh Steelers' 4th-round pick (132nd overall) in 2023 after winning the 2022 Big Ten Defensive Lineman of the Year. He spent his rookie year as a rotational pass-rusher before emerging into a structural role in 2024 and 2025. His STTM career runs tier 6 (#42) in 2024 to tier 2 (#12) breakout in 2025.
Strengths
- Tier 2 (#12) breakout in his third year for a 4th-round pick puts him meaningfully above his draft-slot expectation at the position.
- Wisconsin 2022 Big Ten DL of the Year award plus the Steelers' position-specific coaching creates the structural environment that captures Day 3 ceiling.
Concerns
- Single tier 2 finish without prior top-30 STTM history raises the question of whether the 2025 breakout is structural.
- Pittsburgh's broader defensive identity around T.J. Watt's pass-rush priority creates the question of whether Herbig's ceiling is opposite-side-of-formation dependent.
What to watch: Whether Herbig wins his first Pro Bowl in 2026 plus holds tier 2 or 3, the threshold for confirming the 2025 breakout was structural rather than situational.