Although he is no longer in the NFL, nor is he in the media, former Pittsburgh Steelers inside linebacker Vince Williams is still finding ways to share his views about what’s currently going on. Now a football coach himself, he sees the game from that perspective.
He still follows the Steelers—after all, he surely has plenty of friends still on the roster—and he shared his thoughts on his former position recently. The inside linebacker room no longer includes anybody that he has played with before, swapped out for a pair of free agents at the top in Cole Holcomb and Elandon Roberts.
“I think those guys are two green dots, so I think it’ll be easier for them once they understand what we’re trying to get done”, he told David Ribeiro on the Steelers Sanctuary podcast. “I think once they’re explained their jobs, then you know if they’ll be good. I think for them it’s just gonna be, can they actually do it?”.
And the answer to that question, in Williams’ mind, is not a given. Though Roberts has carved out a seven-year career for himself in a role that is not entirely dissimilar to one Williams previously occupied, it’s always an uncertainty when moving to another scheme.
“That’s the benefit of going out and drafting a person, because you’re really going to get that person that can do it at a high level and then you can build him into the system that you want him to be able to do”, he said. “A free agent is super plug-and-play. Now we’ve just got to say, ‘Can you do it?’ Because there’s really no time for development. We’re gonna know really fast if they can do it or not. We’re gonna know within three games, like, ‘Nah, that ain’t it’”.
That’s a particularly timely comment given the carousel of starters the Steelers have had in recent years, from Jon Bostic and Mark Barron to Joe Schobert and Myles Jack. None lasted more than a year. Pittsburgh saw enough and decided to move on.
Will either Holcomb or Roberts prove to be anything close to a mainstay? The former was signed on a three-year contract, the longest contract they have given to a free-agent inside linebacker during this run, while Roberts is on a two-year deal—as were Bostic, Barron, and Jack.
Time will tell us what the truth is about this current Steelers inside linebacker room, and who will ultimately rise to the top. Can second-year Mark Robinson factor into the mix? Williams also shared his advice to the new young buck, letting him know that he’d better figure out what else he can do besides running downhill if he wants to stick around for a while.
