The Pittsburgh Steelers added a new player to their outside linebacker rotation at the trade deadline with Preston Smith being acquired for a seventh-round pick. He’s in his 10th NFL season, but that doesn’t mean he is going to meaningfully cut into T.J. Watt or Alex Highsmith’s snaps in the starting lineup.
“We let those guys play,” defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Ray Fittipaldo on X. “If they can’t, they come out and get a break and then go back in the game when they’re ready.”
There is no true rotation. The only form of a rotation is when one of Watt or Highsmith needs a break. The rotation starts and ends with the needs of those two, who are accounting for over $37 million in combined salary cap space this season. They are a highly paid tandem, and the Steelers have no intentions of taking them out of the game more than they need to.
Why would they? Watt’s sack numbers may be slightly down, but he is still playing at a Defensive Player of the Year level. Highsmith missed three games but has been on fire since returning with two sacks in the Steelers’ most recent game against the New York Giants. Acquiring Smith was less about creating a rotation and more about giving the team some insurance in the event it suffers some attrition down the stretch of the season.
That doesn’t make the acquisition of Smith any less important.
“It was important. It showed itself when we got banged up there [at OLB],” Austin said via Fittipaldo. “It gives us quality depth so we hope not to be in that position again. He can set edges. He can rush the quarterback. We do know we have a varsity performer.”
The Steelers’ defensive system is predicated on getting pressure on the quarterback with the defensive line and the outside linebackers. When Highsmith, Nick Herbig, and DeMarvin Leal were all out with injuries, the defense suffered as a result. Preston Smith makes it much more difficult to find themselves in that position again this season. The 10th-year veteran has missed just one game in his career.
It may not be the role that Smith was hoping for when he requested a trade from the Green Bay Packers, but he told the media yesterday that he is ready to embrace whatever role he is given.
