Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season is getting underway after the team finished above .500 but failing to make the postseason last year, we turn our attention to the next chapter of Steelers football and everything that entails. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on more specific contexts as we get into the season, reflecting more immediate plusses and minus rather than trends over long periods. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: CB Chandon Sullivan
Stock Value: Down
Reasoning: While I’m sure he wasn’t signed with any promises included in his contract, veteran Chandon Sullivan could struggle to see the field if Patrick Peterson is really going to be the team’s primary slot defender.
Arthur Maulet was taken off the field at times in certain passing situations, which might sound odd to be spoken of about your nickel slot defender. But then again, the Steelers did that with Mike Hilton before him, too. They simply had better pure coverage options whereas Maulet and Hilton’s strengths lay greater in their versatility than in that particular area of their game.
The point is, it’s been a while since Pittsburgh had just one slot defender to rely on consistently through all nickel and dime situations. And they probably won’t have one this year. But if they do, it sounds more likely to be Patrick Peterson than anybody else.
Though he has spent his football life up to this point as an outside cornerback, through which he’s carved out what will likely end up as a Hall of Fame career, Peterson is working on transitioning to the slot this year.
He’ll still play on the outside, but it seems the plan is for him to slide inside when they bring on an extra defensive back—in part because it’s likely that that extra defensive back is going to be rookie Joey Porter Jr., who is going to play on the outside.
That leaves Chandon Sullivan hanging a bit. While the Steelers actually don’t have many true cornerbacks with inside capability who are on the inside of the roster bubble, the coaching staff recognizes that Sullivan being on the field doesn’t put their best defense out there if Porter is ready to play and Peterson can handle the slot.
That’s a two-part challenge, granted, with both parts needing to be true in order to keep Sullivan on the bench, but both of those things seem to be reasonably likely to happen. And it’s not impossible for Sullivan’s roster spot to be challenged.
Pittsburgh does have a couple other guys who can play in the slot, with Duke Dawson being one of them. Should he be favored to unseat Sullivan for a spot on the 53-man roster? Well, I wouldn’t be warming up my vocal cords in preparation for some ‘Duuuuuuuuuke’ chants on Sundays. But I’m not sure how many snaps we can expect Sullivan to see on defense, either.
