Category: Pittsburgh Steelers

The Steelers may go without safety and special teams ace Miles Killebrew for the foreseeable future. Head coach Mike Tomlin announced that Killebrew is dealing with a “significant” knee injury. It’s unclear how much time Killebrew will miss, but the Steelers have already ruled him out for Thursday’s game against the Bengals (via Brooke Pryor of ESPN).

Killebrew, who suffered the injury while covering a kickoff return in a win over the Browns on Sunday, couldn’t put weight on his right leg. He had to be helped off the field and carted to the locker room. The 32-year-old’s absence will be felt on special teams.

A two-time Pro Bowler who’s now in the second season of a two-year, $6.5MM contract, Killebrew has not played at all on defense in 2025. However, the former first-team All-Pro ranks fourth on the team in special teams snaps.

To replace Killebrew, the Steelers could turn to another decorated special teamer in George Odum. The free agent safety visited the team on Tuesday, according to Aaron Wilson of KPRC 2. Odum, 31, divided the first seven years of his career between Indianapolis and San Francisco. He was a first-team All-Pro with the Colts in 2020 and a second-team All-Pro with the 49ers in 2022.

Odum underwent offseason elbow surgery, leading the 49ers to release him in July. Healthy again, he could catch on with the Steelers or another team as we near the second half of the season.

After firing head coach Brian Callahan on Monday, the 1-5 Titans will move forward with Mike McCoy handling the role on an interim basis. It’s improbable that McCoy will fare well enough to take over on a full-time basis, meaning the Titans’ head coach for 2026 is likely to come from outside the organization. With that in mind, Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy and Steelers OC Arthur Smith are early names to watch, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports.

While the Titans hired a first-time head coach in Callahan, they’d be getting an experienced option in Nagy, who led the Bears from 2018-21. Chicago went 12-4 and earned a playoff berth in Nagy’s first year on the job, but he was unable to guide the team back to the postseason. The Bears went 22-27 from 2019-21, leading to his ouster.

After his run with the Bears ended, Nagy went back to Kansas City for his second Chiefs tenure. He has worked in multiple offensive positions since rejoining the team in 2022, including as their O-coordinator since 2023.

The Chiefs have gone to three straight Super Bowls and won two with Nagy back on their staff. However, head coach Andy Reid – not Nagy – calls the plays. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that the 47-year-old Nagy has a connection to Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi, who worked in various roles with the Chiefs from 2009-24.

The Titans and their fans are familiar with Smith, a Tennessee native who held multiple coaching roles with the team from 2011-20. Smith parlayed a successful two-year run as the Titans’ offensive coordinator into his first head coaching job with the Falcons. It proved to be a short-lived stint, however, with the Falcons moving on after Smith guided three straight 7-10 seasons.

In his first year with the Steelers in 2024, Smith oversaw an offense that ranked 16th in points and 21st in yards while struggling to find an answer at quarterback between Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. This year’s Steelers have gotten better play under center from Aaron Rodgers and rank 14th in the league in points per game, but they’re just 29th in yards per contest.

While Nagy and Smith may be prominent in the Titans’ coaching search, the team is unlikely to hire Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady, Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports reports. Brady, 36, has called the plays for Buffalo’s prolific offense since taking over for Ken Dorsey in 2023. However, after the Callahan experiment failed, there’s doubt that the Titans will hire a 30-something with no experience as a head coach for the second time in a row.

The Titans finally gave up on their 2022 first-round pick earlier this month when they waived wide receiver Treylon Burks with an injury settlement. Burks cleared waivers without getting claimed, but now that teams have an opportunity to kick his tires, there’s been plenty of interest in the 25-year-old.

Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, the Broncos appear to be the first team that will host the Arkansas product, whom Rapoport calls one of the top free agents available. Burks first jumped on NFL radars during a COVID-shortened season in his sophomore campaign with the Razorbacks. In only nine games, Burks caught 51 passes for 820 yards and seven touchdowns. He took another step forward in his junior year with a stat line of 66-1,104-11 and heard his name called on the first night of the draft as the 18th player off the board.

Injuries limited Burks in his rookie season, holding him out for six games, but he still showed a ton of promise in the games he did play. He boasted a stat line of 33-444-1 with six starts in 11 games. He missed six games again in Year 2, and though he earned more starts (9), his effectiveness plummeted. He caught barely over half his targets for a 16-221-0 stat line. The start of Year 3 saw him falling down the depth chart, only seeing eight targets in five games before being placed on injured reserve needing ACL surgery.

Burks was recovering well and starting to turn heads in training camp before a diving catch led to a fractured collarbone and placement on IR. Burks received his medical clearance, got released, and will now follow up on all the reported interest. If his visit with the Broncos goes well, he could join a Denver receiving corps that lacks depth behind Courtland Sutton, Troy Franklin, and Marvin Mims.

Here are a few other workout reports from around the NFL:

• The Steelers worked out former first-round pick Isaiah Simmons earlier this week, according to Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports. A versatile defender at Clemson with projections at both safety and linebacker, Simmons was utilized as a linebacker after Arizona drafted him eighth overall in 2020. He started 37 games over his first three years with the team, often showing impressive pass defense but struggling to stop the run. He even requested a move back to the secondary, and though it was announced, his usage remained largely the same. After declining his fifth-year option, the Cardinals traded him to the Giants, who rotated him in at linebacker and played him on special teams. He signed with the Packers in the 2025 offseason but failed to make the initial 53-man roster. Simmons looked to earn an opportunity in Pittsburgh, where Malik Harrison‘s placement on IR has thinned out the linebacking corps a bit, but no deal appears to have resulted from the visit.
• Cashing in on reported interest from earlier in the week, the Ravens hosted cornerback Tre Hawkins for a workout yesterday, per Aaron Wilson of KPRC 2. Currently on track to give up the most points in NFL history with an extremely injury-riddled defense, Baltimore has recently made three veteran additions to their secondary, trading for former Chargers safety Alohi Gilman, signing cornerback Amani Oruwariye, and adding safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson to their practice squad over the last two weeks. Hawkins could be next to join Baltimore’s ailing defense. After getting significant run as a sixth-round rookie for the Giants, earning three starts while appearing in every game of the 2023 season, Hawkins’ sophomore campaign was hampered by injuries, most notably a spine injury that ended his season. New York let him go with an injury settlement shortly after the start of the season, and after clearing waivers, multiple teams have expressed interest. No deal immediately resulted from the Baltimore workout, but his situation is worth keeping an eye on.

The receiver position has been a major talking point for the Steelers dating back to well before the start of the current campaign. D.K. Metcalf has performed well to date, but the matter of depth could prove to be an issue as the season progresses.

Pittsburgh was heavily linked to Brandon Aiyuk last summer before he ultimately inked a 49ers extension. The Steelers were then close to a Christian Kirk acquisition before the 2024 trade deadline, but his season-ending injury made that a moot point. Once again, it appears the team will be one to watch on the trade front at the receiver position.

Mark Kaboly of the Pat McAfee Show “fully anticipates” the Steelers engaging in conversations about all available wideouts between now and the November 4 trade deadline. Metcalf is under contract for the foreseeable future, but Calvin Austin is attached to the final year of his rookie deal and no new commitment on the team’s part is expected at this point. Austin is expected to miss time coming off the bye, although Kaboly adds his injury is not believed to be serious.

That should open the door for Roman Wilson to take on an expanded role in the passing game. The 2024 third-rounder was limited to just one game as a rookie, though, and he has recorded only one catch so far in 2025. Per Kaboly, the underlying cause behind Wilson’s ineffective performances and low usage rate is unclear at this point. Barring an uptick in his role, the Michigan product could remain a minor figure on offense moving forward; that will especially be true if a trade acquisition is to be made in the near future.

Once Pittsburgh had Aaron Rodgers in place, Allen Lazard was named as a potential trade target. No deal was made, but Lazard is a pending free agent attached to a base salary of just $1.75MM thanks to the pay cut agreement he reached with the Jets this offseason. New York sits at 0-5 on the year, and a seller’s approach ahead of the deadline is expected. It will be interesting to see if that includes a willingness to move Lazard to a contender.

The Steelers’ Dublin win moved them to 3-1 heading into their bye week. Things could change quickly, but wins against the team’s next two opponents (the Browns and Bengals) would solidify Pittsburgh’s status as a buyer. General manager Omar Khan has shown a willingness to be aggressive ahead of this season, which is believed to the final one of Rodgers’ career. It would come as little surprise if – at a minimum – a repeat of last year’s Mike Wallace acquisition were to take place.