The Pittsburgh Steelers well underway with the offseason workouts at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, also referred to as the South Side Facility. We are already into the heart of the offseason, where hope springs eternal following a few months of pretty significant changes, in terms of both departures and arrivals.
How are the rookies performing? What about the players that the team signed in free agency? Who is missing time with injuries, and when are they going to be back? What are the coaches saying about what they are going to do this season that might be different from how it was a year ago?
These are the sorts of questions among many others that we have been exploring on a daily basis and will continue to do so. Football has become a year-round pastime and there is always a question to be asked, though there is rarely a concrete answer, as I’ve learned in my years of doing this.
Question: Will the Steelers put in a waiver claim for tight end Michael Roberts?
As we talked about yesterday, Michael Roberts is a player that the Steelers showed a good amount of interest in during the 2017 NFL Draft. He was reportedly even a target of theirs for the fourth round, but he went off the board eight spots ahead of them.
And as you should know by now, Pittsburgh is a team that really flexes its rolodex when it comes to revisiting players that they liked during the draft. Ryan Switzer is yet another player that they liked, and he came off the board just two picks ahead of them in the fourth round that same year. Though they passed on Jordan Leggett, another tight end, in the fourth round that year, they tried to claim him recently.
Roberts is yet another tight end from that draft class, selected right in the meat of the draft, that as been waived. He is yet another tight end that they were interested in at the time. Will he be yet another tight end that they try to get their hands on?
His case is different from Leggett’s, of course. The New England Patriots tried to trade for Roberts, but the trade was negated when he failed his physical with the team. He reverted back to the Detroit Lions, who then waived him.
As you’ll remember, the Lions signed Jesse James in free agency, and also drafted a tight end in the first round, so, like the New York Jets in releasing Leggett, they are a team who may have an overabundance, to explain why they may part with a player who is competent.
Roberts claims that he is healthy and working on building back his strength. With it now being the down time before training camp, however, and him perhaps not at 100 percent, it wouldn’t at all be surprising if he goes unclaimed, since there’s nothing he would be doing with teams right now, anyway.
