Tahir Whitehead
With James Conner missing this matchup with the Raiders, the Steelers will rely on Jaylen Samuels and Steven Ridley to take on much of the workload in his stead. With this being a downgrade, already good players like Tahir Whitehead stand out even more.
Whitehead is a tackling machine. He’s racked up 94 total tackles on the season so far, including seven behind the line of scrimmage. He disrupts the run game and has become arguably the biggest piece of this defense since Khalil Mack was traded to Chicago.
Even with Conner, the Steelers have not been great at running the football lately, so not having your best running back when you’re facing a great linebacker is all the more worrisome. The last thing the Steelers should want to do is become one-dimensional like they were in the game in Denver, but if the Steelers can’t establish the run, Whitehead will be a big reason why, even if Conner was able to go this week.