Should the Steelers Be More Aggressive in Playing Their Rookies?
Should the Pittsburgh Steelers and head coach Mike Tomlin be more aggressive in finding early playing time for their rookies?
UNITY TWP., Pa. — The Pittsburgh Steelers have started training camp for the 2024 season with most of their rookies from this year’s draft class somewhat buried on the depth chart.
First-round pick Troy Fautanu has started as the second-team right tackle, though he has already been rotating in, and moving Broderick Jones over the left side at times. Second-rounder Zach Frazier has been behind Nate Herbig at center.
Third-round wide receiver Roman Wilson has lagged well behind Calvin Austin III and at times, Scotty Miller for slot reps. Third-round inside linebacker Payton Wilson’s path to playing time has always seemed to be fairly obviously blocked by the presence of Patrick Queen and Elandon Roberts, though he has carved out a role as a Dime defender.
Last year, the Steelers did the same thing with most of their rookie class. Jones wasn’t a full-time starter until Week 8. Joey Porter Jr. didn’t start until Week 7. Even with an injury to Cam Heyward, Keeanu Benton played 50% of the team’s defensive snaps just four times last season.
That adds up to some people making a pattern of behavior that suggesting that Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin doesn’t want to play his young players.
In some ways, that’s true. The first season after college football is a difficult one. Players go straight from the end of their collegiate season into massive amounts of training for the NFL Draft, with the Senior Bowl in January, the NFL Combine in February, and then after they get drafted in April, straight into rookie camp, OTAs and minicamp. They get only five weeks off before training camp, and then they head into a season that will be 30% longer than anything they’ve ever experienced before.
Take Porter, for example. He had his struggles during OTAs last spring, but by the time the end of training camp rolled it around, it was clear he had something that he could offer the team. He earned the Dime role coming out of camp, and slowly progressed through more and more playing time until not only was he starting, but he was following opposing teams’ top players around the field.
“I feel like I was already ready, just that confidence I had that I was always ready,” Porter said. “But it worked out best how they did it. It’s a long season. It was way different than college. Just getting that as a rookie and understanding that, I feel like it was probably the best decision.”
Porter played some of his best football down the stretch run, when the Steelers really needed him to. Both he and Benton said that they never felt any of the notorious “rookie wall” that first-year players tend to hit late in the season.
So there’s some method to the madness of holding back first-year players. But Tomlin and the Steelers haven’t always taken that approach.
George Pickens started every game in 2022. Najee Harris, Kendrick Green and Dan Moore all started every game in his rookie year in 2021. Devin Bush was a Week 1 starter in 2019, and so was Terrell Edmunds in 2018.
Clearly, there are times when he has found it appropriate to go to young guys early.
“You know, what I do is based on individuals and it’s not just a cookie cutter approach,” Tomlin said this week. “It’s based on the maturation and maturity and readiness of individuals, and so what may have applied to last year’s class may not apply to this year’s class. I think a lot of this year’s class are older guys than maybe last year’s class — a bunch of fifth-year guys and things of that nature in this class. There might be more immediate maturity and readiness. In a nutshell, I don’t paint with a broad brush. We make decisions on an individual basis.”
And you really don’t have to take Tomlin’s word for it. While the top four draft picks all appear to be in positions where they’re going to have to play their way into playing time right now, at the same time, undrafted free agent rookie Beanie Bishop has an early stranglehold on the slot cornerback role.
Bishop is an older rookie, who is already 24 and will turn 25 this season. He has played over 60 games of college football. His role, even if he wins it and locks it down, is a part-time one at any rate. Last year, Chandon Sullivan played 477 snaps, much less than Porter, in the role Bishop appears to be inheriting.
There definitely appears to be a case-by-case approach to Tomlin’s process, and some of it reflects the rest of the roster, as well. There wasn’t another running back that had any real ability to challenge Harris in 2021. The same with Pickens the following year.
But Moore has 49 starts at left tackle and Herbig has 30 on the inside. The offensive linemen these rookies are looking to push aside have been doing the job for a while. It’s a different process than it was for those players that walked into a nigh-empty room.
At wide receiver, Austin has just flatly outperformed not just Wilson, but every other wide receiver not named Pickens on the roster. He’s earned the right to keep his job.
Are the Steelers cautious when it comes to the total workload they’re giving to younger, less experienced players in an effort to try to keep them fresh for the stretch run? Yes, in some cases. That makes sense. This is a team that has set playoff success as its top goal for the 2024 season.
On the other hand, they’re not going to make their team worse in August and September just to reach that goal. If the rookie is the best option, then he’s going to play.
That seems like a common-sense approach, and it’s one that has suited the Steelers well. Don’t worry, fans, the new, shiny toys will come out of their boxes soon enough. The Steelers didn’t make revamping the offensive line their number one priority in this year’s draft with the intention of just running back five guys that were all here last year. The Steelers rookies will play and they will play important roles in the team’s success in 2024, just like Jones, Porter, Benton did a year ago. Or maybe they’ll earn their role right of the gate. Either way is OK.
Read This Next
