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: OLB Nick Herbig
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: Despite missing practice time recently with a hip flexor injury, rookie OLB Nick Herbig flashed in his NFL preseason debut, registering two sacks (one split with DL DeMarvin Leal) and one additional tackle for a run stop.
Despite what you may have seen reported from other outlets that hastily declared that he was not playing in the game, rookie OLB Nick Herbig did, in fact, make his NFL debut last night in the Steelers’ preseason opener. Indeed, he was hard to miss.
Though he was limited to action on special teams during the first half, the fourth rounder played pretty extensively in the second half and looked like a sparkplug coming off the edge. It’s a theme carrying over from the work that he put in during training camp, at least until suffering a hip flexor injury that had the coaches holding him back a bit in recent days.
It wasn’t clear whether head coach Mike Tomlin would hold him out of the game, but the rookie must have shown him enough in Thursday’s walkthrough to make him feel good about getting him in the game.
It’s a good thing, too, because he provided the Steelers with a pass rush in the second half, including a pair of sacks, one of which he split with Leal. Putting up sacks is always a good way for a rookie edge rusher to introduce himself, and he did that.
With T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith getting the night off, Herbig was clearly the best pass rusher on the field for the Steelers. Despite post-draft questions about his ability to hold up at this level, he certainly looked like he belonged last night.
There’s still a lot in front of him to prove, but he passed his latest test. At this rate, he could be looking at a fairly substantial role in the pass-rush rotation as a rookie, perhaps even early on in the year. He may compete with Markus Golden for the primary backup role, or at least in specialist situations.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. He’s had a good camp so far and he had a nice preseason debut with a couple of impact plays. That’s good. That’s nice. Now we need to see him keep doing it and take it into the games that actually count for something. Against NFL-quality starting offensive linemen who have a scouting report on him.
