Now that training camp has begun, following yet another year of disappointment, a fourth consecutive season with no postseason victories, it’s time to take stock of where the Pittsburgh Steelers stand. Specifically where Steelers players stand individually based on what we are seeing over the course of the offseason as it plays out. We will also be reviewing players based on their previous season and their prospects for the future. A stock evaluation can take a couple of different approaches and I’ll try to make clear my reasonings. In some cases it will be based on more long-term trends. In other instances it will be a direct response to something that just happened. So we can see a player more than once over the course of the season as we move forward.
Player: OLB Cassius Marsh
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: While the addition of Melvin Ingram at the outside linebacker position clearly knocked him down a peg, the veteran has been firmly placing himself inside the roster bubble and in position to be the number four edge rusher.
It is understandable that Steelers fans were underwhelmed by the prospects of entering the 2021 season with a journeyman like Cassius Marsh poised to be their top backup outside linebacker, though those fears were alleviated when the team picked up Melvin Ingram for $4 million.
Though he is further down the depth chart, however, based on what he has shown in practice, and in the opening preseason game, it’s pretty clear that he is declaring the number four outside linebacker position for his own.
Granted, his competition is rookie and first-year players like Quincy Roche and Jamir Jones, though each of them have flashed as well, and are potentially battling for a fifth outside linebacker position. But Marsh has been showing them the value of being a been-there, done-that guy.
Himself a former fourth-round draft pick back in 2014, Marsh has spent time with seven different organizations since then, including three just last year (Pittsburgh being among them), but he has managed to log more than 1,600 defensive snaps over the course of his career.
And he does have 14 sacks during that time with 29 quarterback pressures, along with five forced fumbles, in spite of having only nine career starts to his name across 92 games played. He doesn’t figure to see the field much this year behind T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, and now Ingram, but he is presenting himself as somebody who can play if his name is called, which is all you can ask.
