The Pittsburgh Steelers claimed punter Aidan Laros off waivers from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and released receiver Brandon Johnson, the team reported on the same day.
Laros was claimed roughly two months after the Buccaneers signed him as an undrafted rookie free agent following the 2026 NFL Draft. The move brings a specialist with recent college production onto Pittsburgh’s roster; in 2025 Laros ranked seventh in the SEC and 31st nationally in punting, averaging 44.9 yards per punt.
In college Laros handled both punts and kickoffs in his final season at the University of Kentucky and had a career line of 134 punts for 6,137 yards, a 45.8-yard average. He spent two seasons at Kentucky after stops at Charlotte and the University of Tennessee at Martin and was on the Ray Guy watch list in his final season. Laros is originally from Capetown, South Africia.
The other half of the transaction was simple on paper: Johnson was released. The team did not attach a reason to the roster move when it posted the claims and cuts, and no comment accompanied the transactions that explained the roster calculus behind cutting a receiver while adding a punter.
Those two items landed inside a larger block of contract activity the Steelers announced the same day. Pittsburgh also finalized a new five-year deal with tight end Darnell Washington, extended outside linebacker Nick Herbig for five years and reached agreement with kicker Chris Boswell on a new five-year contract. The team signed first-round pick Max Iheanachor, second-round pick Germie Bernard and seventh-round pick Eli Heidenreich to four-year contracts, added quarterback Aaron Rodgers on a one-year contract and inked several one-year deals including linebacker Jamin Davis, tight end Robert Tonyan, safety Darnell Savage and defensive lineman Dean Lowry, while undrafted defensive back Tamon Lynum also joined the roster.
The immediate weight of the Laros claim is his measurable college work: a 44.9-yard seasonal average in 2025 and a 45.8-yard career mark, numbers that place him among productive punters coming out of college. The team’s simultaneous release of Johnson creates an awkward, unanswered detail in the transaction log — a receiver cut paired with the addition of a specialist, not a like-for-like roster swap.
That friction is the story’s open gap. The announcements supply names and contract lengths for dozens of players but offer no explanation for why the Steelers chose to free a receiver at the same time they added a punter who had only recently been signed by another club. The club has an established veteran kicker under contract in Boswell on a five-year deal, and the roster additions otherwise emphasize long-term investments at several positions, leaving the Laros move and Johnson’s release standing apart.
What happens next will be the clearest signal of intent. If Laros wins a job in camp, Pittsburgh will have added a specialist without trimming its kicking unit; if the club makes further cuts at receiver or elsewhere, the Johnson release may prove to be a personnel or roster-limit decision. For now, the single unresolved question is straightforward: why cut Brandon Johnson at the same moment the Steelers claimed a young punter? The answer will come only with the next roster moves or an explanation from the team.
