The Pittsburgh Steelers’ decision to waive rookie college free agent inside linebacker Matthew Thomas in order to make room for Olasunkanmi Adeniyi was not a popular one. While both undrafted rookies quickly emerged as fan favorites in the preseason, sacrificing one for the other as the latter was activated from the injured reserve list was not what fans had in mind.
At the time, however, it was a simple enough math problem. The Steelers had five inside linebackers, and he was the fifth behind fellow reserves Tyler Matakevich and L.