3 positions Steelers will likely try to improve after final roster cuts

Steelers backup free safety

I like Pittsburgh’s starting safeties a lot. The team made an excellent move by trading for Minkah Fitzpatrick early in the 2019 season, while Terrell Edmunds really started to live up to his lofty billing with a very underrated bounce-back season in 2020.

Outside of these two starters, however, things get a little dicey at the safety position. Miles Killebrew is a veteran who has been around the league for a while now, but he’s primarily been a special teams player and doesn’t have a lot of staring experience on defense in the event of an injury to Edmunds.

However, the backup-free safety position is a much greater concern. Tre Norwood played about as well as you could expect from a rookie 7th round draft choice this year. Unfortunately, the Steelers probably haven’t seen enough from him to believe that he could be a serviceable starter in a pinch if Minkah went down with an injury.

Norwood’s summer has been a rollercoaster ride. At one moment, he could be seen disrupting a passing lane or darting up to make a tackle in the hole, and the next he could be late to react and allowing a massive play to unfold right in front of his face. Norwood could make it back to the practice squad if the Steelers look to upgrade their backup-free safety in free agency after roster cuts.