With the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2022 season over, the team finishing above .500 but failing to make the postseason, we have turned our attention to the offseason. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on broader contexts, reflecting on a player’s development, either positively or negatively, over the course of the season. Other evaluations will reflect only one immediate event or trend. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: DL Keeanu Benton
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: The extent to which linemen can impress in shorts tends to be somewhat minimal, since so much of what they are ultimately asked to do requires pads—at least, in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Demonstrating athleticism and fluidity of movement and a sound understanding of technique, however, is always a good thing to see in May and June. Rookie second-round defensive lineman Keeanu Benton appears to be doing some of those things, getting some recognition from teammates like Larry Ogunjobi.
These conversations tend to come up every time the Steelers draft a lineman early, especially a defensive lineman. We may hear glowing reports about other rookies at positions such as quarterback, wide receiver, and defensive back, but why so silent about the defensive lineman? Is the lack of chatter concerning?
Usually, no. It’s primarily rooted in the fact that not a lot is going on for defensive linemen at this time of year that would be eye-catching to the onlooker, which, for our purposes, primarily consists of beat writers who are permitted to watch and comment on practice if they get a player or coach to acknowledge what happened in practice.
Those who most often communicate what is happening in OTAs will either not have great access to defensive line work or would not have an intimate enough understanding of whether or not what they were seeing was particularly good or bad.
That’s why positive or negative reports about these positions usually come directly from teammates and coaches, as was the case yesterday with Larry Ogunjobi giving rookie Keeanu Benton some praise, calling him a “dancing bear” for his ability to move around at his size.
The 49th-overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, Benton should be an early contributor, and would eventually project to be the starting nose tackle with the ability to play the three- and five-technique positions as well. The Steelers also seem to be of the belief that they can get more out of him, based on what they saw at the Senior Bowl, than what he was asked to do at Wisconsin.
Again, there isn’t a great deal that Benton would even have the opportunity to show case during OTAs that would be filtered back through the media, so this is the best we’re going to hear right now. But he will get all the attention he can handle in Latrobe once the pads come on.
