Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2022 season is over, the team finishing above .500 but failing to make the postseason, we turn our attention to the offseason and everything that means. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on broader contexts, reflecting on a player’s development, either positively or negatively, over the course of the season. Other evaluations will reflect only one immediate event or trend. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: S Scott Nelson
Stock Value: Sold
Reasoning: The Steelers announced the waiver of safety Scott Nelson yesterday, a first-year player who spent parts of last season on the team’s practice squad and who was on the offseason roster throughout 2023 prior to his release.
A lot of fans most likely will not recognize Scott Nelson’s name or even realize that he was on the 90-man roster. Nobody can be blamed for lacking an intimate knowledge of offseason rosters; after all, they’ll never have to know a good percentage of those players’ names.
Nelson was always likely to be one of those players. Originally undrafted out of Wisconsin in 2022, he signed with the Seattle Seahawks, gave him an opportunity at the end of August to join the practice squad, but he only lasted a few weeks there.
The Steelers then signed the 6’2” safety the following month, but like his stint in Seattle on the practice squad, it, too, only lasted a few weeks. They did bring him back a second time toward the end of the year, and he signed a Reserve/Future contract after the season was over.
As of now, the team has not yet made a corresponding move to bring the roster to 90, so it is unclear for what purpose this release was made. It could foretell a signing being imminent—they did have at least two players in as tryout during minicamp this week.
As far as Nelson’s 2023 prospects in Pittsburgh were concerned, they were never good. With Minkah Fitzpatrick, Damontae Kazee, and Keanu Neal at the top of the depth chart at safety, as well as Tre Norwood, Miles Killebrew, and Elijah Riley coming back, he would have been lucky to even be in contention for a spot on the practice squad.
But will the Steelers add another safety? Outside of the five already mentioned, the only other safety they have on the roster is Kenny Robinson. Do they feel that six safeties are enough to make it through training camp as they look to add to another part of the roster, or will they bring in somebody else they feel can be more competitive?
