During the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season, when both Cole Holcomb and Kwon Alexander went down with injuries, it was Elandon Roberts who held down the inside linebacker position. Former head coach Mike Tomlin called him a “tooth-chipper” for his aggressive and physical playstyle against the run game.  He even played through a painful pectoral injury late in December 2023 just to anchor the defensive unit and help drag the team into the playoffs.

So there was obvious excitement in Pittsburgh when the 2x Super Bowl champion Elandon Roberts, now 32, signed a 1-year deal with the Steelers in August. And his history with the organisation is what made a former NFL player, Breiden Fehoko, react when current HC Mike McCarthy and the Steelers front office released the 10-year veteran LB ahead of the 53-man cutdown deadline. 

“This hasn’t held up well with the locker room. Considering the logistics of that LB room. I think it’s very disrespectful that a guy with his resume was brought in as a camp body with no intentions to bring him back. Mind-boggling decision when you play Bijan Week 1,” Fehoko tweeted on X.

When McCarthy took over the franchise in January after Tomlin stepped down, ending his 19-years in Pittsburgh, he brought decades of NFL experience, yet McCarthy’s treatment of Roberts has received serious criticism.

Fehoko, who signed with the Steelers in 2023, previously questioned why Roberts was playing in the 4th quarter of a non-consequential preseason game against the Buffalo Bills alongside a defensive unit that wouldn’t even make the practice squad. Who knew those were just the warning signs preceding the eventual news of Roberts being cut from the roster?

Earlier in August, ESPN’s Steelers beat reporter Brooke Pryor had reported that Roberts “brought a ton of juice” to team practices. Roberts himself had expressed excitement at rejoining the Steelers after a 1-year stint with the Las Vegas Raiders in 2025, where he played in all 17 games, making 90 combined tackles and six tackles for loss. 

“I was in the dorm room last night, and I was just kinda looking up at the walls. I was enjoying it. Sometimes, being in certain places, I was here for two years, so I was like, ‘Oh, man, we gotta be in the dorms.’ When I got back, I was like, ‘Yeah, (this is nice),’” Roberts told reporters in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, a day after making the move back to the Steelers. 

These words make the fact that the Steelers used him as a camp body even more difficult to digest, and it could lead to some tensions in the locker room, per Fehoko.

Former Steelers legend, two-time Super Bowl champion, and former Defensive Player of the Year James Harrison backed up Fehoko’s critique and voiced his disbelief on X. Harrison shared the New England Patriots locker room with Roberts in 2017.

“I hope we don’t regret this cause I didn’t see this coming in a million years. You telling me you brought this man in as a camp body???  Cause that’s damn sure not what it sounded like was happening when he got here. We gon find out quick if this was a good decision or not in Week 1 vs Bijan, though,” the two-time First-Team All-Pro linebacker expressed on X in support of Roberts.

During his initial 2023–2024 Steelers stint, Elandon Roberts recorded 147 total combined tackles, 15 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, and one forced fumble across 33 games. 

Roberts earned a strong 76.7 run-defense grade from Pro Football Focus in 2025. While linebackers Patrick Queen and Payton Wilson offer tremendous sideline speed, neither possesses Roberts’ 238-lb downhill thumping power against lead blockers, leaving Pittsburgh lighter inside against heavy, physical rushing packages. He wasn’t the only physically dominant presence who was cut from the roster, as LB Malik Harrison lost his spot too. 

Looking ahead, the Atlanta Falcons visit Acrisure Stadium led by star running back Bijan Robinson, whose explosive rushing can pose a huge problem to this Steelers’ ILB group. Both Fehoko and Harrison pointed to Robinson’s presence as the prime reason cutting Roberts feels so risky. It will be interesting to see how the Steelers go up against Atlanta in Week 1.