The Pittsburgh Steelers have a problem at the inside linebacker position. After losing Cole Holcomb and Kwon Alexander for the season in back-to-back weeks against the Tennessee Titans and Green Bay Packers, the team was forced to rely on Elandon Roberts to play 100 percent of the snaps on defense. He suffered a groin injury in the first half of the loss to the Arizona Cardinals and could not return to play. It was eerily reminiscent of the injury to Cameron Heyward in Week One where he injured his groin and tried to return to play before realizing the injury was too much to play through.
Roberts’ injury doesn’t seem as severe as Heyward’s was, but the Steelers are still in a bind at the position. They have Mykal Walker, who was signed to the 53-man roster just a few weeks ago, but next to him is up in the air. Following Alexander’s injury and then Roberts’, second-year ILB Mark Robinson stepped in, but only in the games where the players got injured. It seems his role is just for emergencies when another player goes down in-game and they don’t have enough bodies at the position. When the Steelers have had time to prepare after these injuries, Robinson has gotten zero snaps. Defensive coordinator Teryl Austin spoke to the media during his weekly coordinator availability on Tuesday ahead of Thursday Night Football and said Robinson remains a work in progress.
“I’m not sure he’s ready to be a three-down guy,” Austin said in transcripts from his press conference provided by the team. “I think that when you have a guy that can step in and take those snaps, that’s always a good thing. If he wasn’t ready, you’d probably be alternating those snaps…He’s moving along. He’s moving in the right direction. At some point, he’ll take a step one way or the other, and we’ll find out for sure.”
Robinson played 41 snaps against the Packers after Alexander went down and 44 against the Cardinals when Roberts went down. Against the Browns and Bengals in the two games in between? Zero snaps. Given that trend, and Austin’s words in his coordinator presser, it seems likely that Robinson will once again log few if any defensive snaps unless another injury happens in-game.
Following the 2022 NFL season, it seemed possible that Robinson would be a part of the Steelers’ plans to start at inside linebacker. They moved on from Myles Jack, Devin Bush, and Robert Spillane and so Robinson was the only player left on the roster at the position. GM Omar Kahn would overhaul the room by bringing in three free agents, and Robinson was the odd man out of the three-man rotation. Robinson is new to the position in general, being a running back all the way up until his senior season of college at Ole Miss. It is no surprise to hear that he isn’t ready to be a three-down linebacker, but it has been a bit of a surprise to see him get zero snaps.
While Roberts is out the Steelers will turn to either Blake Martinez or Jack to play alongside Walker. Jack is familiar with the system having played in Pittsburgh last season, but both he and Martinez were retired for a brief period of time between the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Tomlin said in his Monday press availability this week that Martinez and Jack were added to the roster in case of further injuries at the position and that the team was attracted to them due to their NFL experience. If experience is something the Steelers value, then Robinson is obviously not the right choice. With the injury luck the team has had at the position, Robinson very well could be called upon once again this season, but it will have to be following an in-game injury.
