Anytime we are judging the performance of players before full pads come on, we need to be careful. The Pittsburgh Steelers technically concluded their first week at training camp, and though there isn't any hard-hitting action to note at this point, there are still plenty of takeaways worth mentioning.
Through the first four days of unpadded practices following arrival to Latrobe, the Steelers have played through both heat and rain. There have been both promising and discouraging performances on each side of the football. Here are the most important storylines to come from the first week of practice.
Crowded linebacker room adds more questions
Let's start right off with Pittsburgh's most notable roster move in recent days. After visiting with Kwon Alexander back in May, the Steelers finally elected to add the veteran linebacker to their 90-man roster near the end of their first wave of practices.
Alexander isn't the same player he was way back in 2017, but he gives them a stable body and veteran presence at the position. While this addition should theoretically improve the team, this adds plenty of questions to an already murky linebacker situation.
We can still assume that Cole Holcomb will be the three-down off-ball linebacker for Pittsburgh, but the division of labor gets tricky after that. Alexander joins a group of new faces to the organization that includes Holcomb, Elandon Roberts, Tanner Muse, and Nick Kwiatkowski.
Early in the 2023 offseason, second-year linebacker Mark Robinson was projected to have a big role. Now his spot on the roster might not even be guaranteed. The Steelers never keep more than five off-ball linebackers on the 53-man roster, so one or two of these guys could be the odd man out. Keep an eye on these battles in the coming weeks, as this might be the most interesting position to watch shape up prior to roster cuts.