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90 In 30: Steelers 2025 Training Camp Preview Series — Alex Highsmith, Cole Holcomb, Will Howard

By Dave Bryan

Posted on June 29, 2025 at 1:29 pm

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2025 offseason practices concluded in the middle of June and next up is the team’s annual training camp, which will get underway in the latter part of July at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe. Ahead of that, we will preview the team’s offseason roster three players at a time. This Steelers roster preview, which includes an outlook for every player, will be done alphabetically by last name to make it easy to follow. This series figures to exceed 90 players as the team can carry 91 players during the offseason due to the allowance of one international player designation.

The next three players we will preview ahead of Steelers’ 2025 training camp are Alex Highsmith, Cole Holcomb, and Will Howard.

OLB Alex Highsmith: Unfortunately for Highsmith, his 2024 season included six missed regular season games due to injuries. A groin injury sidelined Highsmith for three contests during the first half of the regular season and then an ankle injury sidelined him for three more contests during the second half. He was, however, able to play in the Steelers’ final six regular season games as well as the team’s lone playoff game.

In total, Highsmith registered 45 total tackles, nine tackles for loss, six sacks, 13 quarterback hits, two passes defensed, and one forced fumble in the 11 regular season games that he participated in in 2024. He also registered a sack in the lone playoff game. When healthy, Highsmith played well as both a run defender and as a pass rusher.

The 2024 regular season ended with Highsmith only logging 525 total defensive snaps and that was his lowest total amount played since his 2020 rookie season.

Outlook: Obviously, the Steelers hope that Highsmith will miss a lot fewer games due to injuries in 2025 and thus staying healthy and on the field needs to be his primary focus. Should he ultimately play in every regular season game in 2025, Highsmith very well could hit double-digit sacks once again, which he did once previously in 2022.

The Steelers outside linebacker depth chart figures to be just as good, if not better than the one they had last season so hopefully that will result in Highsmith not having to play more than 90 percent of all defensive snaps during the regular season. Should the Steelers defense get off to faster starts in most contests in 2025, that could also save some wear and tear on Highsmith as well.

While Highsmith has primarily been a right side outside linebacker throughout his NFL career to date, we could see him play a little bit more on the left side than normal in 2025 as part of a concerted effort to move fellow starting OLB T.J. Watt around a little more than usual.

In summation, Highsmith has now developed into a very well-rounded player, and that development should be expected to take another small jump in 2025. Any drop-off in play as either a pass rusher or run defender in 2025 when it comes to Highsmith would be a huge disappointment. His missing several games due to injuries once again in 2025 would be a disappointment as well. Highsmith and Watt have an incredibly good chance to become the NFL’s best edge duo in 2025, and the Steelers need that to happen.

ILB Cole Holcomb: The 2024 season for Holcomb wound up being a complete washout and mainly because he needed more time to completely overcome the serious knee injury he sustained during the 2024 season. After starting training camp off on the Active/PUP list ahead of training camp last year, Holcomb was then transitioned to the team’s Reserve/PUP on a split salary ahead of Week 1.

While Holcomb did get healthy enough to resume practicing late last season, and thus had his return window opened, he ultimately never made it back to the team’s active roster and thus remained on the Reserve/PUP list for the entire season.

Holcomb once again agreed to adjust his contract this offseason, and that included him agreeing to have his base salary trimmed down to $2 million from $6 million.

Outlook: Holcomb obviously has yet to play in an NFL game since he sustained his knee injury during the 2023 season. At the very least, he seems fully recovered from that 2023 injury now, and he appeared to be able to participate fully during the team’s offseason program.,

The Steelers’ inside linebacker room is a pretty full one this summer as it includes Patrick Queen, Payton Wilson, Malik Harrison, Mark Robinson, Devin Harper, rookie draft pick Carson Bruener, and Holcomb. At most, the Steelers are likely to keep five inside linebackers so in reality, and assuming five ends up being the amount. Holcomb will battle this summer for one of two spots as Queen, Wilson and Harrison are all locks barring injuries.

Holcomb will likely be asked to be a core special teams player this summer as part of his attempt to win a spot on the 53-man roster. He has some NFL special teams experience in his resume so that will help his cause. Holcomb is an easy player to root for this summer but it’s important to acknowledge that he’s not a lock to stick around past the final roster trim down ahead of Week 1.

QB Will Howard: With the 185th pick of the 2025 NFL Draft, the Steelers selected Ohio State QB Will Howard. His selection in the sixth round came after plenty of speculation that the team would address the quarterback position during this year’s draft at some point.

After transferring from Kansas State in 2024, Howard led Ohio State to a National Championship this past college season. He played his best football later in the 2024 season and was excellent during Ohio State’s playoff run. Measuring in at 6042, 236 pounds with 9-inch hands, Howard profiles as a more traditional pocket passer at the NFL level. He does, however, possess some straight-line speed and thus should be mobile enough to fit into the Steelers’ offensive system under OC Arthur Smith.

Turning 24 in September, Howard was originally a three-star recruit out of Pennsylvania. He threw 48 touchdowns for Northwestern with 19 rushing scores during his three seasons with them. After transferring to Ohio State, Howard developed more under OC Chip Kelly. He completed 73 percent of his 2024 passes for over 4,000 yards and 35 touchdowns with seven rushing scores and led Ohio State to a 14-2 record and ultimately a national title.

Across his four-year college career, which spanned 44 starts, Howard threw for 9,796 yards and 83 touchdowns while completing over 63 percent of his passes.

Outlook: With the Steelers having veteran quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers and Mason Rudolph under contract, it’s hard to imagine Howard’s rookie season being anything more than a redshirt one. Obviously, injuries at the quarterback position could alter that very quickly and just like what happened in 2004 with then-rookie QB Ben Roethlisberger, who was originally poised to sit, watch and learn throughout his first NFL season.

Howard obviously first needs to secure a 53-man roster spot this summer and thus beat out fellow quarterback Skylar Thompson. Assuming he accomplishes that task, from there, he will need to learn as much as he can from Rodgers, Rudolph, offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, and quarterbacks coach Tom Arth throughout his rookie season in order to give himself a great shot at being the team’s starter, or at least the primary backup, in 2026.

The preseason action that Howard receives might be the only time we get to see him play this coming season. Hopefully, he gets to play at least 70 offensive snaps during that span of three preseason games for all of us to be able to pore over.

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