Steelers Release Key Defensive Starter

Other than re-signing JuJu Smith-Schuster, the Pittsburgh Steelers haven't been able to make much of a splash this offseason.

Key starters like James Conner and Alejandro Villanueva have become free agents, but have yet to be replaced while the Steelers struggle with salary cap concerns.

Well, they got some cap relief on Tuesday, but it took releasing a key defensive starter in cornerback Steven Nelson.

Nelson has started 15 games in each of the last two seasons since joining the Steelers ahead of the 2019 season. He's racked up 109 tackles with 17 pass defenses and 3 interceptions in that time.

Nelson received a solid overall grade of 68.1 from Pro Football Focus in 2020 (36th among 121 qualifying corners in the NFL), while also having posted a stellar grade of 80.5 in 2019.

Freeing up over $8 million in cap space is nice, but the Steelers better have a good plan in place for replacing Nelson.

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Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.