Adding NFL-level talent to the 90-man roster once the Pittsburgh Steelers break camp is nothing new. In fact, more often than not, at least one player makes the 53-man roster who was only added after training camp has already begun. Sometimes those players are added very late, around the time of final roster cuts.
The 2023 Steelers have rostered two players whom they added after the start of training camp, and both of them figure to be contributors to the defense this year. They signed ILB Kwon Alexander a little over a month ago on July 30. The signing of CB Desmond King just took place yesterday.
Still, while there is a pattern of such signings, we can hope for a stronger, more consistent impact from the Steelers’ most recent additions. They added two players last year via trade late, but one did almost nothing (OL Jesse Davis) and the other would have been better off doing the same (OLB Malik Reed).
The year before that saw Pittsburgh bring in CB Ahkello Witherspoon and ILB Joe Schobert via trade. Schobert was released the following offseason following a very average year, perhaps below, while Witherspoon sat on the bench most of the year but played well down the stretch. We know how that turned out when he was re-signed.
You can go back to the trade for WR Ryan Switzer in 2018 as another example of relatively little in return, though 2017 didn’t work out too poorly. They added CB Joe Haden and TE Vance McDonald, both of whom would remain with the team until they retired—or at least never played another down in a different uniform.
If Alexander and King can have an impact anything close to Haden, needless to say, that would be a big win. That is by far the most significant post-June addition the team has made over the past decade before the start of the regular season.
As for the former, the linebacker is not expected to be a starter, at least not at the outset, with Cole Holcomb and Elandon Roberts having been signed for that. Things could change over the course of the season, however, in terms of how snaps are distributed.
King has the potential to work his way into a bigger role as a primary slot defender, depending on how the coaching staff feels about what he offers there versus Patrick Peterson. But while we don’t have contract details yet, he likely signed for the minimum and at this point should only be counted on to provide depth.
Still, the potential is there for these two veteran defenders to have a larger impact than that. Both of them are talented, even if they are not in the primes of their careers anymore. And they both seem to fit into the Steelers’ defensive scheme. But do they fit into their plans as well?
