**Player: ILB Cole Holcomb**
**Stock Value: Up**
**Reasoning:** _For the first time since his devastating knee injury in 2023, Cole Holcomb practiced with public eyes on him yesterday. That’s an important semantic difference, since he did practice late last season, but every step of progress is meaningful. Now well over a year removed from his injury, he is finally ready to resume his NFL career._
Near the middle of the Steelers’ 2023 season, ILB Cole Holcomb suffered a friendly-fire knee injury that left him sidelined. I don’t know that we ever even heard all the details or scope of his knee injury, but it was severe enough that he sincerely questioned ever being able to return to football.
Flash forward to the spring of 2025, and Holcomb’s teammates are glowing about how he looks. ILB Patrick Queen, for example, said it’s hard to believe he injured his knee so severely based on his movements. That’s all good news, allowing himself to put his foot back in the door.
The only problem is the Steelers have allowed admittance to many during his convalescence. They have a full linebacker room now, having signed Patrick Queen and drafted Payton Wilson last year. This offseason, they added Malik Harrison to the mix, and Carson Bruener via the draft. Will there be room for Cole Holcomb?
The Steelers signed Holcomb in 2023 as a free agent to be the green dot on their defense, and he looked the part, largely, while healthy. For the price they paid for him—considerably less than Queen—they were getting production.
Entering this season, given his uncertainty, the Steelers asked him to accept a pay cut. Chances are, if he didn’t accept, they would have released him, even if they intended to re-sign him. But he did accept, perhaps viewing remaining in Pittsburgh as the best chance to resume his career.
But being healthy and showing he is healthy is only the first step in his return. Either he will have to play on special teams, to prove that he deserves snaps over Queen, Wilson, or Harrison, or to convince the front office that he is so valuable as experienced depth that it justifies carrying him as a healthy scratch.
It’s a good problem for the Steelers to have, though, and great for Cole Holcomb that he can even play.
_With the new league year underway and the Steelers turning their roster over, it’s once again time to “take stock”. It took a while, but we finally saw some of that_ [_change the team talked about_](https://steelersdepot.com/2025/02/steelers-make-their-coaching-changes-they-still-manage-to-disappoint/) _after the season ended. Certainly, the move to trade for WR DK Metcalf qualifies as a change, not to mention the accompanying contract._
_There is still a long way to go before we know what this Steelers team is going to look like. The dust is settled on both free agency and_ [_the 2025 NFL Draft_](https://www.nfl.com/draft/)_. What other moves might the team make, perhaps unexpected acquisitions or departures? If they traded for one player, they could certainly trade for another, or trade one away. This is a Steelers team starving for postseason success, but how desperate are they for a playoff win in 2025?_