The Pittsburgh Steelers have been quite lucky with backline injuries over the last few weeks. But that lucky streak came to an end in the 35-25 loss against the Green Bay Packers after starting safety DeShon Elliot suffered a bad knee injury in the matchup. And head coach Mike Tomlin has a new update for the Steelers fans.

On Monday, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler communicated that the Steelers were ‘bracing’ for Elliot to miss the rest of the season. But luckily, it’s not an ACL tear. Regardless, he’s expected to miss a couple of months. And Insider Ian Rapoport notes that Mike Tomlin has placed the safety on injured reserve.

Given how ugly that injury looked in real time, Steelers fans might actually consider Injured Reserve the best-case scenario here. When he went down trying to bring down Packers tight end Tucker Kraft on that 59-yard catch-and-run, his right knee just buckled in an awful way.

And that’s brutal for a secondary that was already struggling. The 28-year-old safety has quietly been one of the few steady pieces on that defense, putting up 38 tackles, three quarterback hits, a sack, a pick, and a forced fumble so far this year. Before leaving the Packers game, he’d already logged five total tackles, one solo. Losing him is a big loss.

Because yeah, this isn’t even his first injury of the season. He already missed a couple of games after spraining his MCL back in that wild 34-32 win over the New York Jets. Now, he’s back on the shelf at the worst possible time.

The Steelers’ defense ranks near the bottom of the league in total yards allowed (30th). And they’ve got the Indianapolis Colts next, whose offense has been tearing teams apart all year.

And as if that wasn’t enough, things somehow got worse. Backup defensive tackle Daniel Ekuale tore his ACL against the Packers, which likely ends his season, too. At that point, it felt like anything that could go wrong, did. And Mike Tomlin was quick to make his next move.

Mike Tomlin snatches up safety Kyle Dugger

DeShon Elliot being placed on IR opened up a roster spot, and Mike Tomlin was rather quick to fill it up. Pittsburgh swung a trade with the Patriots, sending a sixth-round pick to New England in exchange for safety Kyle Dugger and a seventh-rounder. You can debate whether that was the best value deal out there, but given the situation, Tomlin had to act quickly.

Dugger, a former second-round pick back in 2020, came into the league with sky-high potential and, for a while, looked like one of the Patriots’ defensive cornerstones. Between 2021 and 2024, he was a full-time starter, racking up nine interceptions and earning himself a nice four-year, $58 million extension.

But things changed fast. Under Mike Vrabel’s regime, Dugger’s role started to fade. He logged 184 total defensive snaps this season. The writing was on the wall. The Patriots had been shopping him since late summer, and everyone knew it was only a matter of time before he got moved.

Now, he’s got a fresh start with some familiar faces. In fact, this marks the second former Patriots safety Tomlin’s brought in this year. The Steelers already have Jabrill Peppers, who signed after getting cut by New England earlier in the season. Peppers and Dugger actually played side-by-side from 2022 to 2024, so there’s already built-in chemistry there.