PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – There was talk of Matt Canada on the sidelines. Cam Heyward’s return. Another fourth quarter drive and then George Pickens social media. There was also, unfortunately, a major injury that happened Thursday to a key player who is out for the year.
Steelers middle linebacker Cole Holcomb had really started coming into his own. He’s played at least 53 snaps in every game, except the Titans game leaving with a season-ending knee injury. The last four games, he’d played over 85% of the snaps with 34 tackles, a pair of tackles for loss, a quarterback hit, pass defended and a fumble recovery. Earlier this year he forced a pair of forced fumbles.
Thursday night, an unfortunate wrong place, wrong time leg whip ended Holcomb’s season. Steelers still have veterans Elandon Roberts and Kwon Alexander, and now back in the mix is second-year linebacker Mark Robinson.
“Try not to look at it that way, just focus what I have going on,” Robinson said Monday. “Of course, I feel for the guy, freak of nature accident. Not making any assumptions as if my time is to come.”
Spending most of his rookie season on the sidelines, Robinson was activated for the 16th game making seven tackles against Baltimore and then a pair of tackles in the season finale against Cleveland. At one point, early in the offseason, he was the only middle linebacker on the Steelers active roster. He may have thought he would get a chance to be a bigger player this year. Instead Omar Khan signed three veteran, free agent middle linebackers and Robinson has played four defensive snaps.
He said it’s too early to know the impact of losing Holcomb and what that means for increased snaps for him and for the impact on the defense. Robinson does believe he’s improved, but won’t really know until he gets more game action.
“We’ll see when that time comes,” Robinson said. “When we get up under the lights, it will play itself out.”
Robinson said he gets along well with his new teammates. He said they feel like a group of brothers and have built a chemistry on and off the field.
“I feel kinda good about the group of guys that we have,” Robinson said. “Preparation, I would say that was one of the biggest things. It’s great to be able to learn and see how guys prepare for a task on the weekend.”
He’s now likely to get a chance to show what he can do this weekend. How much has he learned? How much better is he? Can he prove to be more than a project who had switched from running back?
“People are going to say what they want to say, I’m here for a reason,” Robinson said. “God got me here and I have total faith.”