Running back Kaleb Johnson announced his own trade to the Packers before multiple reports confirmed the Steelers had dealt him on Sunday afternoon.
“Appreciate it Steelers Nation. Let’s do it Packers,” Johnson wrote on social media.
The Packers have uncertainty at the position, with starter Josh Jacobs, who is charged with two misdemeanors related to his May arrest in Wisconsin. Jacobs could go on paid leave while the league investigates the domestic incident that prompted the charges.
Johnson, 23, provides the Packers with insurance.
He entered the NFL as a third-round pick of the Steelers in 2025 and totaled 29 touches for 78 yards in 10 games.
Steelers Clips
The growing trend of NFL teams keeping their quarterbacks out of the preseason has reached the point where more than one-third of starting quarterbacks did not take a single snap in this year’s preseason.
The reasons were different for different teams: Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Colts quarterback Daniel Jones are recovering from season-ending injuries. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson haven’t played in the preseason in years, across multiple coaching staffs. Rams coach Sean McVay is perhaps the most cautious coach in the league when it comes to avoiding preseason injuries, so of course reigning MVP quarterback Matthew Stafford didn’t play.
But the result is the same: If you’re tuning into a preseason game, you’re increasingly likely to see backup quarterbacks exclusively, and if you see a starter at all, it will typically only be for a series or two.
Here’s the full list of teams that didn’t play their starting quarterbacks at all this preseason, via Mike Reiss of ESPN:
Seahawks: Sam Darnold.
Patriots: Drake Maye.
Cowboys: Dak Prescott.
Ravens: Lamar Jackson.
Steelers: Aaron Rodgers.
Colts: Daniel Jones.
Jaguars: Trevor Lawrence.
Chiefs: Patrick Mahomes.
Eagles: Jalen Hurts.
Lions: Jared Goff.
Saints: Tyler Shough.
Rams: Matthew Stafford.
After three seasons in Pittsburgh, offensive tackle Broderick Jones will be moving to Dallas.
The Steelers have traded Jones to the Cowboys, according to multiple reports. There is no immediate word on the compensation that will go back to Pittsburgh.
The Steelers took Jones out of Georgia with the 14th overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft and he has started 38 games through his first three NFL seasons. But last year he suffered a season-ending neck injury in Week 12, and there have been reports out of training camp this year that, even though he’s medically cleared, he looks like he has lost strength.
Jones is in the fourth and final season of his four-year rookie contract. He is scheduled to make $1.5 million this season, and he’ll hit free agency in 2027.
Linebacker Jamin Davis did not make it past final cuts with the Steelers.
The NFL’s transaction report for Saturday shows that Davis was released. It also includes the 11 cuts that the Steelers announced on Friday as well as word that they have waived wide receiver Levi Wentz.
Davis was a Washington first-round pick in 2021 and he has bounced between several teams since being released during the 2024 season. He had three tackles in two games for the Raiders last season.
Wentz signed with the Seahawks after going undrafted out of Kansas. He was waived in June and signed with the Steelers a week later.
The Steelers finished their preseason on Thursday, so they have begun the process of trimming their roster to the mandatory 53-player limit before Sunday’s 6 p.m. ET deadline.
The Steelers announced the release of 11 players: TE Jaheim Bell, OL Greg Crippen, DB Jaylon Guilbeau, DB Jack Henderson, DB Brandon Hill, WR Jakobie Keeney-James, DB Tamon Lynum, DB Daryl Porter, WR Cornell Powell, RB Alex Tecza and WR Isaiah Winstead.
They still have a number of decisions to make, including whether to keep four quarterbacks on their active roster.
Will Howard was being evaluated for a concussion after Thursday night’s game, and the results of that testing are not known yet. That could open the door to a stint on injured reserve to open the season, which would give the Steelers at least four games to evaluate whether they want to roll with four quarterbacks for the long term.
To this day, plenty of Seahawks fans believe the Super Bowl XL officials who were wearing black and white were secretly wearing black and yellow. One person openly wearing black and yellow during the game was new Seahawks owner Vinod Khosla.
On Wednesday, after the owners voted to approve the sale of the team to a group led by Khosla, the self-made billionaire made it clear that he was — and still is — a fan of the team that kept the Seahawks from winning their first NFL championship in early 2006.
“I also happened to come to this country in ’76 when the Steelers were winning Super Bowls,” Khosla told reporters on Wednesday. “So, actually, I was originally, and still am, a big Steelers fan also — a little-known fact — but I still watch all the Steelers games, too.”
Well, it’s no longer a little-known fact. And it’s not unprecedented. Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, for example, was a long-time Giants fans before buying the Vikings; he once followed Lawrence Taylor to the men’s room to seek an autograph. (Wilf waited for Taylor to finish his business and emerge from the facilities.)
“I’ll always be, deep inside, a Giants fan,” Wilf said in November 2005, as the Vikings prepared to face the Giants. “I don’t think it ever goes away.”
For Khosla, the Seahawks and Steelers will square off in 2027. Unless, of course, they happen to cross paths in Super Bowl LXI.
One of the biggest decisions the Steelers have to make leading up to their cut to 53 players will come at the quarterback position.
Aaron Rodgers is going to be the starter and the team has Mason Rudolph, Will Howard and Drew Allar behind him on the depth chart. They used draft picks to add Howard and Allar in the last two offseasons and there’s been plenty of speculation about whether they’d carry all four players on their active roster.
After Thursday night’s final preseason game, head coach Mike McCarthy was asked if he felt all four players had shown enough to earn a roster spot. McCarthy called that a “very accurate evaluation” of how things stand with cuts due by Sunday afternoon.
“I feel good about the quarterback room,” McCarthy said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com. “I’ve been saying it for quite some time, and they’ve showed it on the field. We got two veterans that we can win with, and we got two young guys that we’re excited about the future.”
Howard was evaluated for a concussion on Thursday night and the results of that testing are not known yet. That could open the door to a stint on injured reserve to open the season, which would give the Steelers at least four games to evaluate whether they want to roll with four quarterbacks for the long term.
Steelers backup quarterback Will Howard is being evaluated for a head injury.
Howard was unavailable for his postgame interviews after reporting an injury to the medical staff during the second half of the Steelers’ 28-27 loss to the Bills.
The Steelers reportedly had planned to keep four quarterbacks on their 53-player roster in final cutdowns, but if Howard has a concussion, that would clear the way for him to begin the season on injured reserve. (Or spend the season on IR.)
He spent most of last season on injured reserve due to a hand injury in training camp.
Howard was 9-of-15 for 69 yards with two touchdowns and an interception on Thursday night. He took three sacks in the first half before Drew Allar replaced him for the second half. Allar was 9-of-18 for 88 yards against the Bills.
Howard finished the preseason 26-of-39 for 229 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions.
Starter Aaron Rodgers did not play in the preseason, and Mason Rudolph appeared in the preseason opener. Howard and Allar split the final two preseason games.
The Packers are adding some depth to an offensive position.
Tight end Jonnu Smith is signing with Green Bay on a one-year deal, according to Jordan Schultz of the Schultz Report.
Smith, 31, spent last season with Pittsburgh, appearing in all 17 games. He caught 38 passes for 222 yards with two touchdowns.
A third-round pick in 2017, Smith has appeared in 141 games with 91 starts for the Titans, Patriots, Falcons, Dolphins, and Steelers. He’s caught 345 passes for 3,52 yards with 30 touchdowns in his career.
Smith has not missed a game since 2022, playing all 17 games in each of the last three seasons.
The Steelers were dead last in the NFL in available salary cap space for the 2026 season. Now, they’re not.
Field Yates of ESPN reports that the Steelers have restructured the contract of wide receiver DK Metcalf, converting most of his $25 million base salary into a signing bonus, which creates almost $18 million in cap space that the team can use this year, and moves that money into future years’ salary caps.
For Metcalf, it’s a simple restructuring that doesn’t affect how much he gets paid this season.
Prior to restructuring Metcalf’s deal, the Steelers had very little money available under the salary cap with the offseason rules that count only the 51 highest-paid players on the 90-player roster toward the salary cap. Once the regular season starts, all players under contract count toward the salary cap — not just the 53 players on the active roster, but also players on injured reserve and the practice squad. That means the Steelers needed to make a move.
Now, they have. With $18 million in additional cap space, the Steelers have some breathing room under the cap.
