Today’s minor moves:
Arizona Cardinals
New York Jets
Pittsburgh Steelers
San Francisco 49ers
Seattle Seahawks
Cole Holcomb suffered a frightening knee injury in last night’s Steelers victory. As a result, the linebacker will see his debut season in Pittsburgh come to a premature end. 
Holcomb was carted off the field in the first quarter after suffering the injury, one which head coach Mike Tomlin confirmed after the game was “serious.” He remained in hospital overnight but has since been discharged, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network reports. Holcomb will nevertheless require surgery, Pelissero adds, and he will miss the remainder of the campaign as a result.
The 27-year-old was part of Pittsburgh’s renovations at the inside linebacker spot, signing a three-year, $18MM deal in free agency. That pact marked an end to Holcomb’s four-year run in Washington, despite the interest the Commanders had in retaining him. A starting spot and a healthy workload was provided upon arrival with the Steelers, as the former fifth-rounder logged a 77% snap share. He posted 54 tackles (tied for the team lead) and a pair of forced fumbles across eight games.
As a result, Holcomb’s loss will be acutely felt on a Pittsburgh defense which has already put up underwhelming numbers in several categories. The North Carolina product posted a career-best PFF grade of 72.2 in run defense for 2023, so his absence will deal a blow to a unit surrendering an average of 133 yards per game on the ground. The Steelers will rely more heavily on Elandon Roberts and Kwon Alexander, the other members of the team’s three-man rotation at the LB spot.
While that pair will be counted on to close out the season, Holcomb will turn his attention to the rehab process after his surgery. Fortunately, Pelissero adds that a full recovery is expected, but his ability to return to full health in time for 2024 will be crucial given his importance to the Steelers’ defense. Holcomb is due $6MM in each of the next two years, with scheduled cap hits of $7.64MM for both of those seasons.
The Steelers will have quite a different look at inside linebacker in 2023 than they had in 2022. Free agency took a toll on the room in the offseason but still helped them to reload a bit at the position. In a mailbag Q&A this week, Mark Kaboly of The Athletic addressed the question of whether or not Pittsburgh did enough to address the position this spring. 
First, let’s address the losses. All three of the team’s top contributors at inside linebacker departed in free agency in the offseason. Myles Jack was heading into the second year of the two-year contract he had signed to join the Steelers last year, but the team, instead, decided to release the veteran linebacker to open up about $8MM of cap space. After being allowed to test his market in free agency, Devin Bush signed a one-year contract in Seattle. Lastly, Robert Spillane, who served as a spot starter and factored heavily into the defensive rotation last year, also found his way to free agency, departing for Las Vegas.
That left three holes atop the roster at inside linebacker, including two starting spots. For one spot, the team signed former Commanders linebacker Cole Holcomb. A fifth-round pick for Washington back in 2019, Holcomb was an immediate starter as a rookie. This wasn’t the first time that Holcomb had surpassed expectations as, in college, he earned a scholarship after initially walking on at North Carolina. He’s now started 48 of the 50 games he’s appeared in, but injuries have kept him from appearing in a possible 16 additional games. Most crucially, he missed 10 games in 2022 due to a knee injury in November and foot surgery that ended his season in December. If healthy, though, Holcomb can certainly perform as the team’s top linebacker. His best season saw him rank as the league’s 23rd best linebacker, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), in 2020, and despite his injuries, he ranked 35th in 2022.
Another spot was filled by former Patriots and Dolphins linebacker Elandon Roberts. An eighth-year veteran, Roberts had a bit of a breakout year in 2022. After seeing his role diminish over his final years with the Patriots, Roberts found a way to improve over each season in Miami. Finally starting in every game of the season in 2022, Roberts recorded career-highs in total tackles (107), tackles for loss (10), and sacks (4.5) and tied a career-high in quarterback hits (6). He’s never graded out highly by PFF standards as a full-service linebacker, but last year, Roberts topped all NFL linebackers with an 89.2 pass rushing grade.
Pittsburgh is planning on filling the third hole internally by putting more responsibility on the shoulders of Mark Robinson to fill Spillane’s role from last year. A seventh-round pick for the team in 2022, Robinson only appeared in four games last season, making two starts in the final two games of the year. The Steelers have taken their time with Robinson, who had only played one season at linebacker in college after switching from running back. The team seems confident in Robinson’s ability to step up in Year 2. They relied on him last year in the team’s last two games against the Ravens and Browns, two run-heavy teams, and he may play a similar role this year.
For depth at inside linebacker, the team brought in Nick Kwiatkoski and Tanner Muse. Kwiatkoski has past experience as a full-time starter but hasn’t started a game since the 2020 season. Muse is primarily a special teamer.
So, did the Steelers do enough to address the losses at the position? It may be too soon to say whether they’ve successfully filled the holes in the roster. They did a lot, and the holes are filled, but whether they’ve been filled effectively has yet to be determined. Kaboly does think that the team has done enough to at least satisfy the demands of the roster. He doesn’t believe that the team will continue to pursue Kwon Alexander or other free agents, barring injury to the three players above. Unless Holcomb, Roberts, and Robinson make it clear that they can’t handle the duties of the position, Kaboly believes that “the 90 they have is the 90 they will bring to camp.”
In on the Leighton Vander Esch market, the Steelers will instead end up with another linebacker who spent his rookie-contract years in the NFC East. They are signing former Commanders linebacker Cole Holcomb, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets.
The Commanders wanted to bring back the former fifth-round pick, John Keim of ESPN.com adds (on Twitter), but the sides were too far apart on value. Holcomb, 26, is heading to Pittsburgh on a three-year deal. Holcomb’s contract is worth $18MM, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets.
Although Holcomb is coming off an injury-abbreviated contract year, he started throughout his four-year Washington tenure. He finished the 2021 season with 142 tackles, two interceptions — one of them a pick-six — and seven pass deflections, and Pro Football Focus graded the ex-North Carolina Tar Heel as a top-25 off-ball linebacker that year. He will join a Steelers team that ultimately did not see enough from former first-round pick Devin Bush, who is now a free agent.
Last year, Holcomb suffered a foot injury that ultimately required surgery. He underwent the procedure in December, but that did not impede a multiyear contract. The Commanders have already agreed to terms with ex-Seahawks linebacker Cody Barton, though Keim notes the team is still aiming to add another piece at that position.
Many ILBs have come off the board already, though a few options remain. Lavonte David and Bobby Wagner may be eyeing roles with surefire Super Bowl contenders, but Bush, Deion Jones, Zach Cunningham, Denzel Perryman and Rashaan Evans are available heading into the 2023 league year.
Pittsburgh still rosters 2022 free agency pickup Myles Jack, who is going into the second season of his two-year deal, but lost Robert Spillane to the Raiders on Tuesday. Spillane started 15 games over the past three seasons with Pittsburgh, which did not pick up Bush’s fifth-year option in 2022.
The Giants have been eyeing an extension for star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence for a while now and, following a breakout season, the team has made it a priority. New York started preliminary conversations with Lawrence about two weeks ago, but Jonathan Jones of NFL on CBS claims he wouldn’t be surprised to see a new deal done “sooner than later.”
Despite the ever-growing markets for every position, the league’s market for defensive tackles has never been near the contract of generational talent Aaron Donald. It appears that this will continue to be the case as we see the defensive tackle market reestablished this offseason. Washington has already made Daron Payne the new second-highest paid defensive tackle in the NFL behind Donald with a four-year, $90MM contract. Payne’s average annual value of $22.5MM is still well short of Donald’s $31.67MM per year.
It will be interesting to see where the Giants go from Payne’s deal. Payne established himself as a premier pass-rushing defensive tackle in the league this season but struggled in run defense. Lawrence didn’t have the pass rush production that Payne did but still excelled in the area while also being strong against the run.
Lawrence graded out as the second-best defensive tackle in the league this year, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required). It would make perfect sense for the Giants to reward Lawrence with a contract that surpasses that of Payne’s new deal, but will Lawrence be able to come anywhere close to the heights reached by Donald?
Here are a few more rumors surrounding the Giants’ priorities at the start of the new league year:
DECEMBER 5: Holcomb has undergone surgery on his foot, and will miss the remainder of the season as a result (Twitter link via Tom Pelissero of NFL Network). The news will leave Washington shorthanded for the stretch run and postseason if they make it. In encouraging news regarding Holcomb’s impending free agency, Pelissero adds that he will be recovered in full by March.
NOVEMBER 25: Cole Holcomb‘s injury absence will extend into January. The Commanders placed the starting linebacker on IR on Friday, mandating he miss four more games.
The fourth-year defender has been out with a foot injury since Week 7. Ron Rivera said earlier this week Holcomb was scheduled to visit a foot specialist. It is uncertain if Holcomb has an injury that will prevent him from playing again this season, but he is down until at least Week 17 — because of Washington’s late bye — as a result of this transaction.
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This injury has prevented Holcomb from following up on his team-leading (by a mile) 142 tackles last season. Holcomb, 26, has been a Washington starter nearly throughout his career. Despite being a fifth-round pick, the North Carolina alum started 15 games as a rookie and has settled in as a key defender since.
This season, Pro Football Focus rates Holcomb 32nd among off-ball linebackers. Illustrating the impact Holcomb has when available, his 69 tackles are still 11 more than any other Commander this year. His contract is up at season’s end.
Additionally, Washington used one of its injury activations to bring linebacker Milo Eifler off IR. A second-year UDFA, Eifler has been a backup during his seven-game run with the team over the past two seasons. Because the Commanders also activated Chase Young off the PUP list earlier this week, they now have four injury activations remaining. The team would undoubtedly save an IR-return slot for Holcomb, in the event he will be ready to come back when first eligible on New Year’s Day.
We’ve compiled a list of players who were placed or activated from the reserve/COVID-19 list today. In some instances (including Christian McCaffrey and Travis Etienne), players activated from the list remain on IR:
Arizona Cardinals
Baltimore Ravens
Carolina Panthers
Chicago Bears
Cleveland Browns
Dallas Cowboys
Denver Broncos
Detroit Lions
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
Jacksonville Jaguars
Kansas City Chiefs
Las Vegas Raiders
Los Angeles Chargers
Los Angeles Rams
Miami Dolphins
Minnesota Vikings
New England Patriots
New Orleans Saints
New York Jets
Philadelphia Eagles
Pittsburgh Steelers
Seattle Seahawks
Tennessee Titans
Washington Football Team
Washington’s quarterback of the future signed his rookie deal on Thursday. Dwayne Haskins inked his four-year contract, with the 2023 option, the Redskins announced.
Chosen No. 15 overall, the Ohio State product signed his slot deal — worth $14.416MM with an $8.504MM signing bonus.
Six other Redskins draftees joined Haskins in signing shortly before the team begins its rookie minicamp. Running back Bryce Love, guard Wes Martin, center Ross Pierschbacher, linebacker Cole Holcomb, wide receiver Kelvin Harmon and cornerback Jimmy Moreland signed their four-year rookie pacts.
The second Redskins first-round quarterback pick this decade and fourth this century — following Patrick Ramsey, Jason Campbell, and Robert Griffin III — Haskins comes to Washington on the heels of throwing 50 touchdown passes as a sophomore. He joins a new-look Redskins quarterback room, featuring Case Keenum, and will likely see extensive action as a rookie.
The only members of Washington’s draft class yet to sign are Montez Sweat and Haskins’ college teammate Terry McLaurin.