The Pittsburgh Steelers are out of Latrobe and back at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, also referred to as the South Side Facility. We are in a critical portion of the offseason in which the preseason takes center stage, where some of the biggest and most important questions get answered, especially in terms of personnel.
How are the rookies performing? What about the players that the team signed in free agency? Who is missing time with injuries, and when are they going to be back? What are the coaches saying about what they are going to do this season that might be different from how it was a year ago?
These are the sorts of questions among many others that we have been exploring on a daily basis and will continue to do so. Football has become a year-round pastime and there is always a question to be asked, though there is rarely a concrete answer, as I’ve learned in my years of doing this.
Question: Should Coty Sensabaugh be kept over a fifth safety on the 53-man roster?
I think this is going to be one of the most significant personnel questions that the Steelers are going to face when it comes time to hack their roster down to 53. I would say trim, but it seems hardly appropriate anymore now that they release 37 players all in one fell swoop. There’s a certain gruesomeness to the numbers.
Coty Sensabaugh was signed last March as a veteran free agent to provide depth at the cornerback position. He looked shaky when he got the opportunity to play in the second half of the season due to an injury to Joe Haden, but he has looked much more comfortable and performed better so far this year.
Meanwhile, none of the safeties have really stood out. And I mean none of them. Sean Davis hasn’t really even played, Morgan Burnett has been missing tackles, and Terrell Edmunds has looked like a rookie. The rest of them, outside of a couple of hits here and there, have been pretty quiet.
While the Steelers invested in numbers at the safety position, and I actually like the players that they have, I still find myself unconvinced that it is in their best interests to make room for a fifth safety unless one of them actually demands it, especially since a player like Marcus Allen (or Malik Golden or Jordan Dangerfield) can be placed on the practice squad and called up at any time.
Compounding this is the fact that, at least under my initial impressions, Brian Allen honestly looked awfully raw going up against the Packers’ wide receivers on Thursday night. He got the opportunity to redshirt last season, but if he’s not ready to contribute on defense still, they may need to carry another cornerback. They had seven at the end of last season, with William Gay gone from that group.
