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 Mykal Walker
Stock Value: Down
Reasoning: The fourth-year veteran played his worst of three games thus far in a Steelers uniform against the Arizona Cardinals, struggling all around, but particularly in terms of tackling, missing a handful throughout the afternoon.
It’s never easy to be thrust into a starting position without much time to actually learn the system you’re being asked to run. All credit to ILB Mykal Walker for being able to play as well as he had in the first two weeks with limited opportunity to get his feet under him.
But his performance this past Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals was simply not good. He may have finished the game with a team-high 10 tackles, but that hardly tells the story. It doesn’t show the tackles that he missed or the context in which those tackles came.
Some of them, for example only came after giving up third-down receptions for conversion to Cardinals TE Trey McBride. Third and 6: 17-yard reception. Third and 5: 15-yard reception. There’s a reason after the game that S Minkah Fitzpatrick admitted the Steelers didn’t give him the respect he was due.
Walker after the game even said that he puts all the responsibility for that 99-yard touchdown drive on himself. After all, he gave up multiple third-down conversions in the process, so it’s no wonder. They could have gotten off the field over and over again.
It was a bad game and a significant step down from how he had performed in the previous two weeks. So the question now is what happens next? With Elandon Roberts ailing and likely attempting to play through a groin injury, what is Walker’s role?
The coaching staff has been talking up Blake Martinez and Myles Jack in the past 24 hours or so, suggesting their intentions to get them ready to play. Could Walker end up getting benched? Probably not right away, especially while Roberts is ailing, but we could see all of the linebackers play with the best man winning the biggest role.
