One day before the calendar flipped over to 2025, the Pittsburgh Steelers returned a slew of injured players to Tuesday’s practice. LB Cole Holcomb returned to action for the first time since his significant 2023 knee injury, while rookies WR Roman Wilson and DL Logan Lee also got reps, full and limited, respectively.
For Wilson and Lee, why now? Was Lee’s calf injury so severe that it cost him nearly his entire rookie year? Why did Wilson miss 2.5 months because of his hamstring? The odds are that these decisions aren’t entirely health-related. Both have probably been healthy enough to practice for a little while. In fact, Lee seemed to reference that yesterday, telling reporters he’s been working out “really hard for 19 weeks.”
The difference is Pittsburgh has the flexibility to bring them back.
As mentioned earlier this year, each team only gets eight slots during the regular season to designate players to return off injured reserve and be eligible to rejoin the active roster. Valuable spots you want at your disposal in case there’s a rash of injuries. Prior to Roman Wilson and Logan Lee, the team had used six of their eight spots.
With Week 18 approaching, the odds of a new player landing on injured reserve, missing four games, and being designated to return are almost zero. Any player who lands on injured reserve before the Bengals’ game, and the Steelers have no obvious candidates, wouldn’t be able to return until the Super Bowl. Any player who lands on injured reserve after the Bengals’ game this Saturday couldn’t return this way since there’s only a maximum of four playoff games: Wild Card, Divisional, Conference Championship, and Super Bowl.
So there’s little downside or risk to letting these young guys practice now.
What about playoffs? If Pittsburgh is at their maximum, does that mean everyone still on injured reserve definitively can’t return? No. The NFL allows two more “to-return” spots for the postseason for teams to bring back additional players. So that late-season injury doesn’t doom him for a postseason run.
Designated Roman Wilson and Logan Lee to-return doesn’t mean their return to the 53-man roster is imminent. It probably won’t happen. But it allows those guys the opportunity to get in practice reps to finish out the year after spending much of the season on the sidelines. The more reps young players can get, the better. And for the team, it’s helpful to get fresh legs in practice to help divide up reps as needed. More players who can offer looks on the scout team.
Frankly, assuming no major injuries against Cincinnati, the team could do the same ahead of the Wild Card Round. If rookie OT Troy Fautanu is healthy enough to practice, there’s every reason to open his return window to get him back on the field to close out a lost rookie season. Anyone else healthy enough to return could grab that second slot. Maybe CB C.J. Henderson, maybe OT Calvin Anderson, or someone else. There’s little downside.
Should any Steelers suffer a multi-week injury going forward, injured reserve may not be their destination. Not unless it was obviously season-ending, something that would keep them out for months. Pittsburgh would just hold onto the player as a weekly inactive instead.
And as for Holcomb, his rules may differ slightly. Since he’s on Reserve/PUP, not injured reserve, he may not count against the eight slots like players normally do. But I admit I’m a bit vague on the language here.
NFL rules used to declare anyone landing on injured reserve to be automatically out for the season. They’ve smartly loosened those restrictions to give teams and players more flexibility. It’s a win-win, and it gives young players like Wilson and Lee a couple of extra reps to have something to lean on heading into their first full NFL offseasons.
