Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Cameron Sutton is scheduled to hit free agency this offseason. With a cornerback room that is facing a lot question marks, bringing him back will be an important task in the coming weeks. Luckily for Pittsburgh, Sutton has indicated that he wants to be back.
On Monday, Sutton sat down with Dale Lolley of Steelers.com in a one-on-one interview where Sutton talked about how he doesn’t want to be player changing teams often and would like to stay in Pittsburgh.
“I’m not a guy always being on the move, I just want to be around,” Sutton said, according to video via Steelers.com. “You know, like I’ve said, I feel like I’ve established a lot here, seeing so much ball just year in year out, and just a comfortability of the guys in the system.”
Sutton talked about the comfortability of the guys in the system and part of that is due to how the Steelers keep a lot of continuity. Since Sutton was drafted in 2017, Mike Tomlin has been his head coach, and current defensive coordinator Teryl Austin has been working with Sutton since 2019, his breakout season, as secondary coach and now defensive coordinator.
https://www.steelers.com/video/watch-1-on-1-with-sutton
While some fans groan at in-house hires it does help keep things consistent, and with the way the Steelers have been consistently competitive, playing a meaningful game in the last week of the regular season every year since 2013, it is hard to argue too much against it.
However, despite the Steelers being consistently competitive and achieving many goals such as AFC North Champions and playoff appearances in Sutton’s time, he knows that he and his teammates have not achieved the ultimate goal of a Super Bowl.
“The expectations we have for ourself just individually and collectively, they all come together for the same goals year in year out and thus just not being able to achieve the ultimate yet, we know that we’re always working towards that and working for that.”
Sutton saying that makes it sound like has has unfinished business in the Steel City and he wants to win a Super Bowl as a member of the Steelers organization, a place he calls “special.”
“We’ve had the great guys great guys in this building to do that [achieve many goals]. Just being able to be a part of that, like I said, is always special.”
With Sutton being open to re-signing in Pittsburgh, I expect general manager Omar Khan to be all over that. Sutton was easily the Steelers best cornerback, and with the uncertainty of the cornerback room with free agents and Ahkello Witherspoon being a big question mark, letting a highly productive cornerback go would be a detriment to a Steelers team looking to take a big leap next year.
This past season Sutton had a career highs with three interceptions, 15 pass breakups, and allowed the second lowest passer rating when targeted of his career at just 65.3. Those are extremely good numbers, and with him still being only 27 years old, he still has plenty of good years in front of him.
These next few weeks will be important and preventing Sutton from hitting free agency. It will certainly be something to monitor, but with him wanting to stay in Pittsburgh and him likely being a priority re-sign I expect it to get done and Sutton will be a Steelers for at least a few more seasons.
