Player: OLB Nick Herbig
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: Nick Herbig just keeps making plays, and the Steelers can’t keep him off the field. Outsnapping both Alex Highsmith and T.J. Watt, he has back-to-back multi-sack games going into Thursday night against the Bengals. And guess who’s giving up a sack on 7.2-percent of their dropbacks this year: Cincinnati.
T.J. Watt has strung together three multi-sack games in his career twice before. Nick Herbig has a golden opportunity to do it for the first time on Thursday against the Bengals. He already has two in a row, of course, registering 3.5 total sacks in the past two games. Facing an immobile Joe Flacco against a shaky offensive line, the opportunities will present themselves.
Despite missing the opener, Nick Herbig leads the Steelers with 4.5 sacks on the season. He is in the top 10 in sacks leaguewide, in fact, although numerous players are stuck at 4.5. Should he pull off another multi-sack game, however, he might just start to separate himself.
With each passing week, the notion that Herbig is the Steelers’ best pass rusher is becoming an increasingly popular and common opinion. That’s not insignificant considering T.J. Watt is on the team. When you pay an edge rusher $41 million per season, you certainly expect him to be the best you have. It’s hard to deny what Herbig brings to the table, though.
Gone are the days of analysts questioning his longevity due to his size. It’s quite clear by now that Nick Herbig knows how to win, whether it’s with pure speed or by using his size to his advantage. In 3-OLB looks, the Steelers also like to rush him from inside and cause guards fits.
The question is, how far can he take this? Increasingly, even beat writers are beginning to predict that Nick Herbig will see a starter-level extension, and Highsmith will play out his remaining two years before the team moves on. One wonders if the situation doesn’t come to a head before that, though. Because how long can you pretend to have three starters? Three years seems like a long time.
With regular season underway and the roster in place, it’s once again time to “take stock”. It took a while, but we finally saw some of thatchange the team talked about after the season ended. Certainly, the move to trade for WR DK Metcalf qualifies as a change, not to mention the accompanying contract. Oh, and they also traded some guy named George Pickens, which people found significant.
After a long offseason, we finally know what this Steelers team will look like for the 2025 season. The dust is long settled on both free agency andthe 2025 NFL Draft, and now we’re into the real thing . What final moves might the team make, if any? They’ve certainly made a flurry of moves, though some question whether they make much difference. This is a Steelers team starving for postseason success, but how desperate are they for a playoff win in 2025?
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