The past two football offseasons for Derrick Harmon featured no shortage of emotion, ranging from horrible grief to gut-wrenching uncertainty to proud gratification.

Finally, in 2026, Harmon has something of a sense of normalcy in how he can approach his spring.

“Most definitely,” the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle said soon after his rookie season ended last month. “For me, I’ve got a real offseason. So, I am going to attack it.”

Harmon began his offseason journey armed with the knowledge he can play at the NFL level following a rookie season that generally met expectations commensurate for a first-round pick.

Despite two separate knee injuries that cost him five games, Harmon (including playoffs) started nine of the 13 games he appeared in and totaled four sacks, 33 tackles, a batted-down pass and a fumble recovery as a rookie.

More subjectively, he had the appearance of a young player who fit in seamlessly among a Steelers defensive tackles corps that entered camp with no shortage of veterans. Harmon, though, quickly ascended up the depth chart to “starter” status.

“It felt good to earn (coaches’) trust, but it doesn’t stop there,” Harmon said. “You’ve got to earn their trust every game. That’s just been my mentality this season.”

That Harmon so quickly adjusted to the pro level is a testament to his ability to focus after a tumultuous and frenzied 12-month time span that led up to his selection by the Steelers in the draft.

A Detroit native, part of what compelled Harmon to enroll at nearby Michigan State in 2021 was his relationship with his mother, Tiffany Saine. The next year, Saine suffered a stroke that left her partially paralyzed.

So when Harmon was confronted with an opportunity to buttress his burgeoning football career during the spring of 2024, he felt conflicted leaving behind his mother by transferring across the country to Oregon.

Saine encouraged Harmon to pursue his dream, and sure enough Harmon’s profile rose considerably to the point he was graded as a first-round draft prospect. Of course, accompanied with that is a chaotic three months of training in preparation for the draft.

It paid off in the form of a selection by the Steelers on April 24 — but the euphoria of that moment for Harmon quickly was overshadowed by the death of his mother later that evening.

Harmon grieved but was a full participant in the Steelers’ spring and summer programs. Though a knee injury in the preseason finale delayed his NFL debut until Week 3, Harmon had two sacks over his first three regular-season games and by season’s end was the Steelers’ second-most deployed defensive lineman behind second-team All Pro Cam Heyward.

“I feel like the (NFL) is very transparent. You’ve gotta play your best ball,” Harmon said. “There’s a lot of elite guys at this level. It was everything I thought it would be coming in.”

The preseason knee injury was a ligament sprain; in late November, that same (right) knee was injured during a game in Chicago. After not missing any of his college teams’ 38 games from 2022-24, Harmon twice had multi-game absences in his first season as a pro.

“You always think like that — maybe things could have been different if I didn’t get hurt,” Harmon said. “But for me, I always try to (believe) there was a reason for everything. And I still did everything to the best of my ability, and I came back.”

The raw numbers indicate Harmon made a massive impact on the Steelers’ run defense. In the five games he missed, the Steelers allowed 165.6 rushing yards per game and 4.7 per carry. In the 12 games he played, those opponent rushing numbers dropped to 91.2 and 3.9.

Like many of last season’s Steelers coaches did, Harmon downplays his role in those statistics. But even if those numbers slightly inflate the story of Harmon’s play as a rookie, there’s a consensus that the Steelers found a player who could help anchor their defensive line for a long time to come as it (eventually) transitions to a post-Heyward future.

Free from the burdens of cross-continent moves, the anxiousness of working to improve his draft status and — most importantly — the grief of a painful loss, Harmon was eager to head into an offseason in which he could focus on his game.

“I know what to expect (at the NFL level) and what’s going to be asked of me,” Harmon said. “So now it’s a matter of working on those things over the offseason and coming back prepared.

“I’ve just got to look back on this (2025) film and see what I can do better. Nothing’s ever perfect, so I’ve just gotta clean up the little things and come back next year. And take that next step.”

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