Last offseason, Omar Khan was fully in charge of free agency and the draft for the first time as the general manager of the Pittsburgh Steelers. In a lot of ways, his first year making moves was a success. He nailed the 2023 draft with many of the rookies making a large impact in Year 1. The free agent haul was just as good, though injuries derailed a couple of the key signings from impacting the team down the stretch. Pro Football Focus released a list of the best 2023 free agent signing for each team and named OLB Markus Golden for the Steelers.
Here is what Mason Cameron of PFF wrote:
“Although Golden played sparingly behind a pair of incredible edge rushers in T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith, he was extremely productive when called upon. On 112 pass-rush snaps, Golden generated 16 pressures, 11 of which resulted in a quarterback knockdown — an incredibly efficient 68.8-percent rate.”
For the first time in a while, the Steelers had solid depth at the OLB position. Golden was the main rotational player behind Watt and Highsmith, but they also had rookie Nick Herbig in the mix. In past years, like the 2022 season, the depth wasn’t quite there and when Watt went down that season the drop-off was painfully evident.
Fortunately, the Steelers did not have to go through that again, though they were probably the best equipped they have ever been to handle a significant injury at that position. Golden did have to fill in for Watt in the playoffs as Watt suffered a knee injury in the final game of the regular season, and he logged one of the Steelers’ two sacks in that game. PFF gave Golden an 86.5 overall grade for the season, including an 80.9 pass-rush grade and a 77.8 run-defense grade.
He finished the season, including the playoffs, with 23 tackles, 16 solo tackles, five sacks, and seven tackles for loss while only playing 281 defensive snaps, just 24.7 percent of the team’s total snaps on defense. It is hard to justify taking Watt or Highsmith off the field to work in the depth, but Golden made the most of his opportunities.
He now enters free agency next week as an unrestricted free agent. At age 33, his market won’t be overly robust, so perhaps the Steelers can bring him back on another one-year deal to allow Herbig some more time to develop and grow into his body to eventually be the primary backup.
The top competition for Golden on this list would be G Isaac Seumalo, who was the most expensive of the Steelers’ free agents last offseason. He certainly played a whole lot more snaps that Golden, but early-season struggles held his overall season grade down. There was also Cole Holcomb, Elandon Roberts, Kwon Alexander, and Allen Robinson II to consider. The Steelers got solid contributions out of that whole group, but injuries struck the inside linebackers hard and limited their impact on the team.
