With CB Cameron Sutton departing in free agency, the Pittsburgh Steelers have a gaping hole at slot cornerback. Yes, CB Chandon Sullivan was signed in free agency, and he is primarily a slot corner, but his resume doesn’t jump off the page. So, as of now, the slot corner position is a question mark, and head coach Mike Tomlin is willing to give it time to sort itself out.
“We got great time,” said Tomlin Saturday in his post practice press conference posted to Steelers.com. “We got a lot of guys that show capabilities in that area. And what we’re doing there is we’re just not discounting anyone. We’re giving everybody an opportunity to show what they’re capable of. And obviously as the road gets more narrow in this process we’ll reduce some of those numbers, but during this acclimation period this is a great time to see who can execute assignments in detail and so forth. And as we move into next week tackling and things of that nature usually thins the herd.”
Today, the Steelers ended their third day of training camp and there are 13 more practices to go. As Tomlin said, there is time. With such a big question mark surrounding the position it makes sense to take as much time as possible. When there are a bunch of possibilities for who can play the role — Sullivan, Patrick Peterson, Elijah Riley, etc. — you might as well give them all a chance.
Once the team starts practicing in pads and preseason games roll around then we will likely get a more concrete idea of who might be playing slot cornerback this season. There is no reason to rush this and as much as fans want to know, sometimes there is also a competitive advantage for not showing your hand.
If the Steelers are going to be good this year, their defense will have to be great. Teams have film from last year, but there was a lot of turnover in the secondary, leading to uncertainty of what it will look like this season. Given that Tomlin wants everyone to get a fair shot at the role why rush making a decision?
For the Steelers to be successful they will need their slot cornerback to give a quality performance on almost every snap. In a passing league, the Steelers will be in their nickel defense often, a slot cornerback. Because of this, they need to be sure they make the right choice on who to start there.
Unfortunately for us we likely won’t know who to expect starting Week One until the end of training camp, but it might end up being better that way for the Steelers.
