The Pittsburgh Steelers have a free agent safety coming to town for a visit and it’s one with high pedigree at that.
According to Josina Anderson, free agent safety Karl Joseph is visiting with the Steelers on Wednesday.
Joseph, who played his college football at West Virginia, was drafted by the Oakland Raiders in the first round of the 2016 NFL Draft. Last season he was a member of the Cleveland Browns.
The Steelers seemed to like Joseph ahead of the 2016 NFL Draft as head coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Kevin Colbert both attended to West Virginia pro day that year.
For his NFL career, Joseph has 303 total tackles with 11 being for loss. He has five career interceptions and 19 total passes defensed. With the Browns in 2020, Joseph appeared in 14 games and made eight starts. He finished with 67 tackles, tied for third on the team, along with four passes defensed and two fumble recoveries. He also recovered a bad snap from Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey for a touchdown in the Browns Wild Card playoff win over Pittsburgh. He also had an interception in the Divisional Round against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The 5-foot-10, 200-pound strong safety stepped into a starting role in 2016 as a rookie with Raiders, but lost playing time in 2018 and in 2019. The Raiders declined to pick up Joseph’s fifth-year option on his rookie contract and he signed a one-year, $2.43 million contract with the Browns last offseason.
The Steelers have safeties Terrell Edmunds and Minkah Fitzpatrick entrenched as starters right now. However, both of the 2020 backup safeties, Sean Davis and Jordan Dangerfield, are both unsigned unrestricted free agents right now. Young safeties Antoine Brooks and John Battle are under contract right now as well.
UPDATE: Joseph now listed as visitor on the Thursday NFL sheet.
