In baseball, you build your team through the middle. Catcher, pitcher, center fielder. In basketball, you build your team through the middle. Center then point guard. And in football, you build your defense through the middle. Nose or defensive tackle, inside linebacker and safety. While there are certainly arguments to those theories in today’s games, the Pittsburgh Steelers clearly recognize the need for strength in the middle. They are desperate for a safety.
The Situation
Anyone who follows the Steelers knows they entered Training Camp with a problem at safety. It wasn’t that they didn’t have quality players, it’s that almost all of them were similar. DeShon Elliott, Jaquan Brisker and even Sebastian Castro all fit that “box safety” model to a tee. In other words, they are far better playing closer to the line of scrimmage than they are playing deep.
The Steelers drafted Robert Spears-Jennings, the fastest safety at the NFL Combine and he’s certainly a free safety. As a rookie though, he’s still not in a place where the team is comfortable with him starting there. Jalen Ramsey seems a likely candidate to play free safety but he still hasn’t participated in Camp yet. Former first round pick Darnell Savage was given a chance but he’s already been released.
In his place, the Steelers brought in Rayshawn Jenkins. The Steelers are now his fifth team in ten years and Jenkins is well-remembered for his poor behavior with a Terrible Towel. Whether or not Jenkins has had time to make an impact or not doesn’t matter. The team already brought yet another guy last night.
The Newest Guy…
Israel Mukuamu is a former Cowboy and Panther with massive size at 6’4” and over 200lbs. He’s largely played Special Teams only with just three starts in five seasons. The former South Carolina Gamecock doesn’t have many starts but over 50 games of experience does matter. As of right now, I think he’s been brought here much more for his acumen on Teams rather than anything he may or may not do at safety. If that is accurate, then the Steelers still have a safety problem.
Give both Mike McCarthy and Patrick Graham credit. They are trying to attack an area of weakness but I think the guy who ultimately plays back there isn’t on this roster yet. From everything I’ve gathered, Graham has used two-deep looks a lot so far which may reduce the need for a true free safety. That said, every team goes single-high at times and you have to have a guy who can cover ground back there. Therefore, I think the Steelers will be extremely active as teams start to make cuts ahead of the season.
The Black and Gold know where the strength of their defense has to be and finding the right guy continues to be one of their top priorities as August rolls on.
