Player: ILB Cole Holcomb
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: The Steelers speak carefully when discussing ILB Cole Holcomb, coming back from a major injury. Still, head coach Mike Tomlin seemingly offered a significant update recently. He said that Holcomb is potentially on track to participate by the time training camp starts.
Cole Holcomb suffered a major and potentially complex knee injury last year, ending his 2023 season. It was serious enough that the Steelers seemed to plan for life without him, not just for now but for the long term.
To that end, they signed Patrick Queen in free agency and then invested a third-round pick in Payton Wilson. Queen is now their clear number one. Wilson, though, could potentially displace Holcomb on a long-term basis as well.
All Holcomb can focus on, however, is the future and his control over it. By all accounts, he has attacked his rehab vigorously in an effort to get back. Head coach Mike Tomlin recently said that he is aiming to participate at the start of training camp.
Avoiding starting on the Physically Unable to Perform List would certainly be big news. We don’t know, however, in what capacity Holcomb might be able to contribute right away. And the Steelers would probably want to exercise some caution, given the severity of his injury.
While good news, the reality is that Holcomb is starting much closer to the bottom than last year. He is no longer a starter, for one thing, and he is going to have to prove his health. Even if “healthy” he could end up on the inactive list for games. I wouldn’t count on him contributing on special teams, and they have Queen, Wilson and Elandon Roberts. Mark Robinson is your special teams linebacker, so he would dress.
But hey, at this point, Holcomb beginning the season as a healthy scratch would be huge. Some have wondered if he would even ever play football again. We still don’t know if he will or not, and we’ve gotten no official updates — ever. But going into training camp, what little we have gotten seems to be more positive.
As the season progresses, Steelers players’ stocks rise and fall. The nature of the evaluation differs with the time of year, with in-season considerations being more often short-term. Considerations in the offseason often have broader implications, particularly when players lose their jobs, or the team signs someone. This time of year is full of transactions, whether minor or major.
A bad game, a new contract, an injury, a promotion — any number of things affect a player’s value. Think of it as a stock on the market, based on speculation. You’ll feel better about a player after a good game, or worse after a bad one. Some stock updates are minor, while others are likely to be quite drastic, so bear in mind the degree. I’ll do my best to explain the nature of that in the reasoning section of each column.
