There has long been the belief in NFL circles, one that Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin firmly believes, that players make the biggest leap in performance between their first and second seasons.
Pro Football Focus put together its list of breakout players for the 2024 season and Steelers’ second-year defensive tackle Keeanu Benton was one of its choices among defensive tackles.
Benton, the second of the Steelers’ two second-round draft picks in 2023, had a very solid rookie season, recording 36 tackles, one sack, eight quarterback hits, two forced fumbles and two pass defenses in 483 defensive snaps, which amounted to 43 percent of the team’s defensive plays.
And he was just scratching the surface of what he could be in 2023.
What’s his ceiling?
“It’s way up there somewhere,” Benton said. “But I’m really not looking for that. I’m just keeping my head down and working.”
It shows. Benton was a big, strong player in 2023 as a rookie. But even though he has slimmed down by 10 pounds at this point, he also is stronger than he was a year ago.
“It was mostly just getting to know my body looking at my first NFL season,” Benton said. “It was the most games I’ve ever played in the year, so it was just getting to know my body better and kind of preparing it for this year was probably my biggest takeaway. I feel like the game itself, physically and mentally, I know I need to get better. But that’s something that goes without being said. I was really focused on my body.”
While Benton’s primary position is nose tackle, he rushes the passer well enough that it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see him get increased opportunities as an interior pass rusher in the nickel and dime defenses, even with Cam Heyward back on a full-time basis this season.
That’s the natural progression for the player who just might be the eventual replacement for Heyward up front as the cornerstone of the team’s defensive line.
But he’s got to take that step everyone expects in 2024.
One of the great honors for an NFL player is being named to the NFL’s All-Decade Team. The team is voted on at the end of every decade by the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s selectors.
In 2020, when I had the honor of serving as the selector for Pittsburgh and presenting both Troy Polamalu and Alan Faneca, one of the duties that season was to select the NFL All-Decade Team for the 2010s.
It’s not an easy job considering some players’ careers began midway through the decade, while others played the entire decade. So short-term greatness versus longevity is something that has to be taken into consideration.
And it’s very meaningful for the player because more often than not, the players voted to an all-decade team someday wind up enshrined in Canton, Ohio.
For the Steelers, wide receiver Antonio Brown and center Maurkice Pouncey made the 2010s All-Decade Team, but Heyward and outside linebacker T.J. Watt did not.
Pro Football Network last week took it upon itself to put together an all-decade team for the 2020s. Now, we’re only four seasons into this decade, but that does account for 40 percent of the period. So, it is a large enough sample size to get an idea of where things are headed.
Three Steelers made the list, all on the defensive side of the ball, as Watt, Heyward and safety Minkah Fitzpatrick were selected.
Watt was one of four edge rushers selected along with Cleveland’s Myles Garrett, San Francisco’s Nick Bosa and Dallas’ Micah Parsons.
Heyward was one of four defensive tackles to make it. The others were Aaron Donald, Chris Jones and DeForest Buckner.
At safety, Fitzpatrick headed a list that included current free agent Justin Simons, Arizona’s Budda Baker and Tampa Bay’s Antoine Winfield.
Now that it has been announced the AFC North will be featured on the in-season version of HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” the backloaded nature of the Steelers’ 2024 schedule begins to make a little more sense.
That, however, doesn’t make it right.
Sure, the NFL is entertainment. And television drives the bus.
But the gauntlet the Steelers have to maneuver over the final two months of the season is one that has seldom been seen in the league.
The only thing about it that levels things out is that the Browns, Bengals and Ravens all have similar problem areas on their respective schedules.
Perhaps it is just the price of each of these teams being legitimate contenders and very good teams.
The idea that Roquan Smith somehow turned Patrick Queen into a good player and that he’ll somehow be a bust for the Steelers is one you see crop up from time to time.
But it’s very possible that it’s a fallacy.
Like many players at inside linebacker, Queen struggled early in his career adjusting to the NFL game. NFL offensive coordinators are master manipulators when it comes to young linebackers, who are asked to play both the run and the pass equally. And one false step is all it takes to get you out of position.
It often takes two or three years, depending on the intricacies of the scheme and what they’re being asked to do, for the lightbulb to come on. But once it does, it’s on for a long time.
If you look at Queen’s grades on Pro Football Focus – I know, they’re very subjective, but they are a tool – he got better in each one of his seasons, taking a big jump from his first to second season and again in his second to third seasons.
That’s the natural progression. And remember, he played half of his third season without Smith beside him.
In fact, if you look at the career trajectory of Smith, an argument could be made that playing next to Queen helped him out as much as the opposite.
The season before joining the Ravens, Smith earned a career-low 47.8 defensive grade. His run defense grade had gotten worse in each of his first four seasons.
After joining Baltimore, his grades jumped considerably. So maybe, just maybe, it was the defensive scheme and playing next to Queen that helped him.
In fact, if you look at his 2022 season, when he played the first eight games in Chicago and last nine in Baltimore after being acquired via trade, it backs that theory up.
Smith’s overall defensive grade with the Bears was 52.6 over eight games. In nine games with the Ravens, it was 84.7. So, who helped whom?
• Don’t read much into “struggles” of players during the offseason program, particularly for players whose game is predicated on physicality, not necessarily athleticism.
Until players put on pads, it’s all “football in shorts,” as Tomlin likes to call it. And he’s right.
If you know you’re not going to be hit, it makes things easier for receivers to look great. But for players whose game is all about blocking, tackling and hitting, there’s not a lot to be gleaned outside of what they are learning and how quickly they are learning it.
