Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season is getting underway after the team finished above .500 but failing to make the postseason last year, we turn our attention to the next chapter of Steelers football and everything that entails. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on more specific contexts as we get into the season, reflecting more immediate plusses and minus rather than trends over long periods. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: ILB Kwon Alexander
Stock Value: Purchased
Reasoning: The Steelers officially announced the signing of veteran ILB Kwon Alexander yesterday. Though there are no specific plans for him at the outset, he should compete for playing time and possibly a starting job over the course of training camp.
Even into training camp, the Steelers continue to radically remake their inside linebacker room. While Mark Robinson is still here from last season, he is the sole survivor from the 53-man roster who is with them in camp (Chapelle Russell is also still around from the practice squad).
The latest addition is the most experienced yet, Kwon Alexander. Financial terms have not yet been disclosed, but there’s a good chance it’s only a one-year veteran salary benefit contract, like the one that he signed last year with the New York Jets.
While he hasn’t exactly been rolling in the money the past few seasons, he has continued to play at a reasonably high level when healthy. Health and availability will be a key factor for him, though he is coming off a season in which he did play in all 17 games.
Now in Pittsburgh, he should compete with Cole Holcomb and Elandon Roberts for playing time, a pair of veterans who were also signed as free agents this year, though far earlier in the offseason in the heart of free agency.
Alexander has done a little bit of everything over the course of his career, spanning more than 5,000 defensive snaps for four different organizations. He has nearly 600 career tackles, including about 50 for loss. He has 12.5 sacks, 11 forced fumbles, and eight interceptions, along with 33 passes defensed.
A starter for the vast majority of his career, he only played about half of the defensive snaps for the Jets last season, in his first year in which he didn’t miss at least a quarter of the season since 2016, which is a rather long time ago.
If he can be trusted to stay healthy, and on the field, he can certainly carve out a big role on this defense. He’s still (just about) 29 years old so there is still something left in the tank. He put some good tape out there last season with the Jets, so they know what they’re getting. The only question is why it took so long.
