SCB Steelers Quick Hitters: The ‘OTAs and More’ Edition

Good Monday to you Steelers fans.

We are officially in that phase where free agency is largely over except for some minor signings that are still sure to happen. It’s also just over four weeks until the NFL Draft and while the ‘smoke’ hasn’t started in full yet, there are definitely little plumes of it appearing. We also know the dates of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ OTA dates now too. As a reminder, the OTAs are broken up into three different phases before finally ending with the team’s official Mini-Camp. The first three phases are May 21st through the 23rd, May 28th through the 30th and June 3rd through the 6th. The team’s Mini-Camp will be held June 11th though the 13th. Once that ends, the players are officially “off” until Training Camp begins in late July.

Cam Sutton

As many of you know, the former Steelers’ CB and now former Lions’ CB had a warrant issued for his arrest in South Florida back in early March. Sutton has officially turned himself in as of this writing. The warrant cites domestic violence. Sutton was actually in the Lions’ facility when he was notified of the warrant. Despite officials of the team pleading with him to turn himself in, Sutton left and hadn’t been seen since turning himself in yesterday. His football career is now very secondary in his overall life at this point.

Leal

You may notice the guy on the main image is Steelers’ DL DeMarvin Leal. He’s a huge question mark entering his third season in 2024. While he appeared in 12 games last season after seeing action in 11 in his rookie campaign, his overall playing time really fell off. He was often not part of the rotation on the defensive front after what I would call a pretty promising rookie season. You’ll recall that the Steelers used Leal a bit as a ‘heavy’ EDGE when T.J. Watt went down in week one. While not great he was more than serviceable and seemed to use that as a catapult to a solid rookie year. I’m really not sure what the future holds for him. The Steelers are desperate for more help on the D-Line with Cam Heyward near the end and Larry Ogunjobi often not 100%. I’m hoping things click for Leal because this is likely a make or break year for him.

ARII Responds

In his first comments since the NFLPA’s Survey on team facilities came out, Steelers Team President Art Rooney II was not pleased. “We prefer to get our feedback directly from the players,” he said. “Not even sure where that comes from. It doesn’t get presented to us. It gets presented to the media. So, as far as I’m concerned, it’s more of a media opportunity for the Players Association as opposed to a serious effort and constructive criticism. But having said that, we look at improving our facilities every year, and we’ll continue to do that.” (Quote Courtesy The Athletic)

I understand what ARII is saying and he makes fair points. Getting information directly from the players is always the best way to do things but he shouldn’t completely dismiss the survey either. The Steelers have to upgrade their facilities. Sharing with Pitt was cute when the whole idea was first put together but they’ve been left behind by most other teams in this regard. I’m not suggesting they need to build a ‘Taj Mahal’ but they need more space and better amenities all-around.

Not Buying It Mike

While at the Owners’ Meetings Last Week, Mike Tomlin was asked about the Diontae Johnson trade. “We had an opportunity to get D-Jack (Donte Jackson),” he said. Tomlin then started that Jackson was a guy they had studied a lot at LSU. The Panthers needed a receiver and we needed some guys on our back end is essentially what he said afterwards and that was about it. The reason I say “I’m not buying it” is because this wasn’t as much about acquiring Jackson as it was about shipping Johnson out. I respect Tomlin for keeping those things in-house but it has been made abundantly clear to me that the Steelers were going to move on from Johnson one way or another. Tomlin making it sound like they were doing it to get Jackson is a bit disingenuous. This was about getting rid of DJ period.

Draft Prep

Click on this link which will take you to all of our Draft Profiles and Mock Drafts. We’ll start rolling out more profiles later this week.