On Tuesday, Pittsburgh Steelers rookie quarterback Chris Oladokun was waived as part of the team reducing their roster down to the mandated 80 active players. Predictably, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was asked on Wednesday about Oladokun being included in that group of five players who were cut. Specifically, Tomlin was asked if the young quarterback being waived was due just to a lack of reps for him, or something that the team wasn’t seeing the player.
“Again, it’s just, you know, decisions that we have to make,” Tomlin said. “It was roster reduction day and we made five decisions and those decisions speak for themselves.”
Tomlin was then asked if it is conceivable that the door could open again for Oladokun to return to the Steelers at some point, and the head coach gave a somewhat predictable answer.
“I wouldn’t close the door on anything,” Tomlin said. “You know, in this business experience has taught me that.”
For whatever it’s worth, Oladokun cleared waivers on Wednesday and that now means that he’s free to sign with any team. With the final week of preseason games nearing, it’s probably a good bet that Oladokun won’t be on an 80-man roster at this point. That could obviously change in a day, however.
The Steelers very well might have plans of attempting to sign Oladokun to their 16-man practice squad following the team’s final round of roster cuts. There could possibly be other teams interested in signing Oladokun to their practice squads as well.
After being selected in the seventh round of the 2022 NFL Draft out of South Dakota State, Oladokun went on to get very few snaps in training camp. In fact, the snaps he did get came during the few practices right before the team broke training camp at Saint Vincent College. Obviously, Oladokun failed to see any action in the Steelers’ first two preseason games prior to him being waived on Tuesday.
We’ll wait and see how things play out in the Steelers’ preseason finale Sunday night from an injury standpoint and specifically at the quarterback position. Additionally, it will be interesting to see if the Steelers wind up trading away quarterback Mason Rudolph between now and the start of Week 1. Regardless of what transpires these next few weeks, it certainly seems like there’s a good chance that Oladokun could land on the Steelers’ initial practice squad. That might have been the Steelers’ plan for Oladokun the moment that he was selected in the draft.
The waiving of Oladokun on Tuesday resulted in a dead money charge of $22,488 for 2022. He will also have a dead money charge in 2023 of $67,464.
