The Pittsburgh Steelers have an inside linebacker problem, and there is no easy solution. They lost Cole Holcomb for the season in Week Nine to a knee injury and Kwon Alexander in Week 10 to an Achilles injury.
Omar Khan went shopping in free agency for help at the position to revamp a group that saw Devin Bush, Myles Jack, and Robert Spillane depart the team in the offseason. That left second-year LB Mark Robinson as the only holdover from last season on the roster.
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin talked about Robinson’s development during his Tuesday press conference via the team’s YouTube page.
“He’s grown really fluidly and consistently the way that you would expect a guy in Year Two to grow,” Tomlin said. “Thankfully he had an opportunity to kind of rise up and experience some legitimate growth at the latter part of last year…I thought that was a springboard into his offseason.”
Tomlin is referring to Robinson’s 37 snaps played between the final two weeks of the season last year against the Baltimore Ravens and the Cleveland Browns. He had nine combined tackles in 44 defensive snaps played last season.
“I like the trajectory of his play in the team-building process, but we’ll see where it all leads us because he obviously will be at the front of the line in terms of getting an expanded role opportunity as we prepare for this one,” Tomlin said.
Robinson played a little over 60 percent of the team’s snaps in Week 10 against the Green Bay Packers following Alexander’s injury. He registered three total tackles in 41 defensive snaps played. He had only logged four defensive snaps the entire season prior to Week 10 with one tackle against the Tennessee Titans. After those few snaps Robinson did play, defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said he “earned some reps”, which furthers the point that the team likes the trajectory of his development.
He converted to linebacker his senior season at Ole Miss after playing running back to start his college career. He was selected by the Steelers in the seventh round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Being so young in general on top of having minimal linebacker experience, especially in-game, leaves a lot of questions as to what type of player he will be.
His experience as a former running back suggests he is capable of coming downhill and filling gaps in the run game, but Holcomb and Alexander were the Steelers’ two best linebackers in coverage. Those abilities will need to be replaced to some degree. Tomlin talked about the availability of players affecting personnel packages on the defense.
“Those decisions aren’t made in a vacuum and what Cleveland does oftentimes is a component of that. I don’t know that we’ll be afforded that opportunity to play small,” he said. “I think Coach [Bill] Callahan and that guard tandem and others gonna have something to say about that.”
The Steelers’ next opponent, the Cleveland Browns, is a hard-nosed team that likes to run the football, so Robinson’s skill set could be well suited for this upcoming game. As Tomlin said, they won’t be able to sit in nickel or dime packages all game against a team with such a talented interior offensive line.
