The Pittsburgh Steelers only had five cornerbacks on the 53-man roster to open the season. They didn’t even dress all of them in the opener. On Sunday, there were six cornerbacks active for the Week Five game against the Atlanta Falcons.
That number six cornerback was second-year cornerback Brian Allen, who spent all of his rookie season in 2017 on the 53-man roster, and dressed for 10 games, mostly later in the year, becoming an integral part of several special teams units.
The team chose not to keep him on the 53-man roster to start this season, spending the first four weeks on the practice squad before he was promoted after safety Nat Berhe was placed on injured reserve.