The Pittsburgh Steelers continue to suffer attrition on the defensive side of the ball. The inside linebacker group in particular has had trouble staying healthy. Cole Holcomb and Kwon Alexander were lost in back-to-back weeks. ILB Elandon Roberts stepped up in a big way and had been playing 100 percent of the Steelers’ defensive snaps. He was also acting as the defense’s quarterback, wearing the green communication dot to field play calls from the sideline. He suffered a groin injury Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals, attempted to come back, and immediately realized he couldn’t continue to play. It was very reminiscent of the situation with Cameron Heyward in Week One. It is unclear when Roberts will be available to the team, but it seems unlikely he will be able to play on a short week with Thursday Night Football.
With another injury at inside linebacker, the Steelers will be forced to feature new faces at the position. Mykal Walker was signed to the 53-man roster ahead of the Week 11 game against the Cleveland Browns and has played over 75 percent of the snaps in each week since. Fortunately, the Steelers have some additional players in waiting, both on their 53-man roster and practice squad. Former Steelers ILB Myles Jack and veteran ILB Blake Martinez figure to play a role moving forward, depending on the severity of Roberts’ injury.
“We lost our defensive quarterback in Elandon Roberts when he went down with the injury,” Tomlin said in his Monday press conference, which was posted on the Steelers’ YouTube page. “Coupled with the fact that obviously we’ve lost Cole and Kwon in previous weeks really put a strain on us at that position. In playmaking and communication.”
Jack appeared in 15 games last season for the Steelers, starting 13 of them. He battled nagging injuries most of the year, but registered 104 combined tackles, three for loss, and had three passes defended. He signed with the Philadelphia Eagles in August before deciding to retire from football a couple of weeks later. The Eagles officially waived him last month, and the Steelers promptly added him to their practice squad to help protect against future ILB injuries since they had lost Alexander and Holcomb at that point.
Martinez had also retired in November of the 2022 season. He un-retired in early November to sign with the Carolina Panthers’ practice squad before the Steelers signed him to their 53-man roster on Nov. 22. His most recent season as a full-time starter was 2020 with the New York Giants where he registered 151 combined tackles including nine tackles for loss, two forced fumbles, and five passes defended.
“When you just look at the pool of people available to us and just where we were, we valued NFL experience,” Tomlin said. “Even if that NFL experience was not in a training camp or has limited work in that area, and so we didn’t wait for the next domino to fall before we acquired those guys and began their physical preparation process and their mental preparation process. We did that a couple of weeks back, hopeful that we would have more time, but you don’t always get what you want.”
The Steelers have an internal candidate, Mark Robinson, who has been with the team for the last two seasons, but he appears to be in more of a break-in-case-of-emergency role. He plays special teams, and he has only really logged snaps on defense when a starter goes down mid-game. As Tomlin mentioned, the Steelers value having guys with legit NFL experience and need it more than ever with Roberts injured.
