Despite bringing home a victory over the weekend, the Pittsburgh Steelers got a pretty significant scare when safety DeShon Elliott went down with an injury. Fortunately, there’s solid news regarding the eighth-year man as Week 2 arrives.
According to a Tuesday morning report from Jordan Schultz, Elliott is nursing an MCL sprain.
Report: DeShon Elliott Potentially Out ‘A Couple of Weeks’ With MCL Sprain
“Sources: Steelers S DeShon Elliott is expected to miss a couple of weeks with an MCL sprain,” Schultz’s tweet began. “All things considered, it’s not viewed as a serious injury. The goal is to be back for Week 4 vs the Vikings in Ireland. In the meantime, Pittsburgh has signed Jabrill Peppers.”
In a separate tweet shortly after Schultz’s report, Mike DeFabo of The Athletic said the injury is “not considered long-term.” He added that Elliott will be “week-to-week at the most” and has a chance to “even be day-to-day.” Ian Rapoport of NFL Media says Elliott is “day-to-day.”
This is certainly huge for the Steelers. When news broke that the team was signing Peppers off the open market, many thought that spelled doom for Elliott. On the contrary, there now seems to be a not-so-distant world where the two can play together in the secondary. Elliott has a safe runway to recover and is now facing less pressure to work back quickly.
Prior to leaving Sunday’s win over the New York Jets, Elliott played 26 defensive snaps and 3 special teams reps. After being credited with an assisted tackle on a second-and-7 in the second quarter, he exited the contest. At that point, he logged 6 tackles — 5 solo efforts — in what wound up being a 34-32 victory.
Following the game, head coach Mike Tomlin revealed that Elliott’s injury was “being evaluated.” A new week of practice brings a mostly positive development in that regard. The Steelers’ opponents for Weeks 2-4 are the Seattle Seahawks, New England Patriots and Minnesota Vikings.
Elliott Looking to Maintain Order in Steelers’ Secondary Upon Return
Elliott getting back on the field sooner rather than later is nice for the Steelers. After all, the veteran defensive back was expected to play a leading role again in year two.
Signing with Pittsburgh for the 2024-25 campaign, Elliott made good on his contract. Playing in 15 regular-season contests, he recorded a career-high 108 tackles (4 for loss) with 6 passes broken up. He also logged a trio of fumble recoveries on defense. He got the job done in coverage, too, posting a personal best 5.2 yards per target and a minuscule 2.7% missed tackle rate. Elliott played 823 defensive snaps in the regular season.
Advanced stats reflected a solid year as well. Of 73 safeties with at least 500 snaps played last year, Elliott ranked 19th in Pro Football Focus overall grade at 70.2. His marks for run defense (87.8, fifth) and tackling (90.3, third) were downright fantastic. Among that group, his 31 logged “stops” rounded out the top 10.
Once Elliott is back in the lineup, he’ll join the newly-acquired Peppers and slot in with other options like Juan Thornhill and Chuck Clark. Veteran Miles Killebrew is also in the mix, albeit primarily in a special teams capacity. He logged 21 special teams snaps but zero defensive reps in Week 1.
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