Player: RB Travis Homer
Stock Value: Purchased
Reasoning: Not the most exciting move, Travis Hunter adds another body in the running back room, but is primarily here for special teams. His addition could jeopardize the spot of 2025 third-round pick Kaleb Johnson if he doesn’t step up. Homer is clearly the better special teams player, so Johnson has to make himself valuable on offense.
The Steelers surely had rather high hopes when they drafted Kaleb Johnson last year. With no second-round pick, he was their second player taken, in the third round. Their presumed future bell-cow running back, he spent the last month of his rookie year on the bench. Now a special teamer in Travis Homer is challenging his spot on the team, at least in theory.
While there is a long way to go before any roster battle is decided, Homer is here to bolster the special teams game for the Steelers. They lost some key contributors this offseason, especially Miles Killebrew, Calvin Austin III, Connor Heyward, and Kenneth Gainwell. Pittsburgh gave Johnson a chance to return kicks last year, but he lasted just two games.
Now, the Steelers could very well carry four running backs, which happens reasonably often. If Travis Homer is here almost exclusively for special teams, then it makes all the more sense. And that’s undoubtedly why he is here, going over his resume.
And eighth-year veteran, Homer has 655 career offensive snaps and 1,303 special teams snaps. In just 10 games a year ago, he logged 163 special teams snaps and just six on offense. For the past five years, he has played at least 50 percent of his team’s snaps on special teams. The last time he played more than 10 games, he logged 253 snaps—and six on offense.
Now, Travis homer isn’t much of a return man, so he’s unlikely to be of much help there. With 49 career tackles, though, including 10 in 2025, he is an asset there. He also has an onside kick recovery and a special teams score off a fake punt on his resume.
With the 2025 season behind us and the new league year underway, we still have stock to take. Already promisinga year of change, they are shaking things up. That is unavoidable, of course, when you gut the coaching staff. Mike Tomlin’s resignation will fundamentally change this football team, including the playoffs on the roster.
After a long season, we have finally seen that this Steelers team is playoff-bound. But they also showed that their progress was actually minimal,since they made it no further. Two years in a row, with two different quarterbacks, they went 10-7 and lost in the Wild Card Round. The only differences are they ended the season on a higher note and won the division. But it didn’t help.
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