Over the past week, the Pittsburgh Steelers have added seven players from the 2024 NFL draft, five undrafted rookie free agents, and have invited numerous players to their rookie minicamp. So when will the Steelers get their first opportunity to see these players?

For those who may not know, the NFL gives teams two potential weekends, the first two following the NFL draft, in order to hold their rookie minicamps. While a number of teams take the opportunity to get their players in front of them as soon as possible on the first weekend, the Pittsburgh Steelers have traditionally, waited until the second weekend available to hold their camp. For 2024, the Steelers are holding with their traditional pattern and will host their rookie minicamp next Friday, May 10, through Sunday, May 12, at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex.

To know exactly who is attending camp, the Steelers typically release a roster of players sometime next week before the event. Although some players have had reports of their acceptance of an invitation to rookie minicamp, often times players will accept multiple invitations in order to attend one each weekend to increase their chances of receiving a contract. For this reason, there could be players who were expected to be at rookie minicamp who attended camps of other NFL teams this weekend and could receive a contract.

While many of the players who are attending rookie minicamp on a tryout basis will leave without a contract, there have occasionally been times where players not only received a contract for the 90-man offseason roster but have gone on to make the Steelers 53-man roster. Players such as quarterback Devlin “Duck” Hodges and outside linebacker Tuzar Skipper are both examples of players who landed with the Steelers as a rookie camp tryout.

Even though the Steelers will be filling up there slots in order to do the things they wish to accomplish throughout rookie minicamp, the focus of many fans will be on the Steelers newly drafted players as they will be looking for pictures and reports of the highly anticipated players. But will they be there? Keep in mind that even though players have not signed their contract with the Steelers, they are still permitted to attend rookie minicamp as well as OTAs which begin on May 21.

So while you may be seeing reports of other NFL teams having their rookie mini camp this weekend, just know you haven’t missed out on the action yet as the Steelers have just over a week before the rookies come to town in their first official action with the Steelers.