Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2022 season is over, the team finishing above .500 but failing to make the postseason, we turn our attention to the offseason and everything that means. 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: S Damontae Kazee
Stock Value: Down
Reasoning: Entering training camp, it remains unclear whether or not Damontae Kazee is being viewed as the starting strong safety.
The Steelers liked what they saw from veteran safety Damontae Kazee last year well enough that they decided to re-sign him on a two-year, $6 million contract—more than they offered to retain their own former first-round, five-year starter, Terrell Edmunds.
And yet we don’t even know if he is going to start at strong safety at this point. He doesn’t even know, or at least that is what he wanted the media to think last month when he was asked about what he expects his role to be.
Partially due to a drunk driving issue during the 2021 season while with the Dallas Cowboys, Kazee went from regular full-time starter to reserve when he signed with the Steelers last year. He missed the first eight games with a broken forearm but returned in the second half of the season to play considerably, with a couple of starts due to injury. He even managed two interceptions.
But while the Steelers re-signed him this offseason, they also brought in veteran safety Keanu Neal, the two of whom have spent most of their careers in the NFL together as teammates, in Dallas in 2021 and for years before that with the Atlanta Falcons.
Formerly a starting duo, now they may be pitted against one another to see who takes the lion’s share of snaps next to All-Pro free safety Minkah Fitzpatrick. Neal has had the less stable starting job over the years, not to mention the less reliable medical history, but how the two safeties will be used is apparently yet to be determined.
And let’s make it clear, that’s not a bad thing at all. Training camp is the time where you figure out what you have and what works best. You can’t just put together a lineup based on who is making the highest average annual salary.
If that’s what their plan is, then let the two of them compete, and then figure out which combination of the two of them works best for the defense. Chances are both of them will get a decent amount of playing time in one context or another. But who will be the ‘starter’? Would they consider switching based on opponent?
Well, probably not.
