By the time the Pittsburgh Steelers take the field tonight, their starting inside linebacker duo may well be a pair of players who have never started a single game for the team before. Or it could be the same pair that has started the last several games.
With Elandon Roberts nursing a groin injury and Mykal Walker coming off a rough game, the Steelers have been sniffing around. That includes head coach Mike Tomlin, who has made repeated references to their other options.
“Thankfully we’ve insulated ourselves and have been working behind the scenes to fortify our depth at that position”, he said, referring to Blake Martinez and Myles Jack, a couple of recent additions, on the Mike Tomlin Show. “We’ve got some veteran guys that we can call on and prepare for and may have to use in a big way this week”.
Martinez, one of the most experienced defenders on the entire roster, was signed off the Carolina Panthers’ practice squad on November 21. He’s got a couple of weeks under his belt now—about as much as Walker had when he was thrown into the starting lineup.
Along with Walker, the Steelers also added Myles Jack to their practice squad. He was a starter for this very defense a year ago, released in March as a salary cap casualty. The primary issue with him is his conditioning, since he’d been retired, though he has said he never stopped training. But he’s only been doing football activities since November 20.
“Those are two capable, NFL-veteran players”, Tomlin said. “You’ve got to get them in shape, you’ve got to teach them what to do, but they’re veteran NFL players. Both have been hubs of communication, or green dots, for organizations”.
Roberts had been wearing the green dot since both Cole Holcomb and Kwon Alexander were lost for the season due to injuries. Walker had been the next man up for the dot, but as we saw on Sunday, that led to significant communication issues and perhaps his shaky performance can be partially attributed to his divided attentions.
Would it be shocking if Roberts is unable to play and the Steelers opt for another option beyond Walker? Could this game be started by Martinez and Mark Robinson—or perhaps even Jack? The fact that we’re even having this conversation illustrates what state the inside linebacker position is in right now.
If sufficiently healthy, in shape, and versed in the defense, Martinez and Jack are probably your two best linebackers on the roster on the inside, but neither of them have been the same since dealing with injuries in recent years.
I seriously question how much Roberts can play tonight, however, if he even dresses, so at a minimum, Martinez or Jack—the former more likely, given that he’s on the 53-man roster and has been in football conditioning longer—would be very likely to play. We may even see them mixing and matching to find which combinations work best.
