For the rest of the preseason, we’ll give a recap, position by position, player by player of what I saw during the 2022 Pittsburgh Steelers training camp and preseason games. This list is based off the 16 public camp practices and the preseason games I’ve watched up until this point and is based solely off their performance then and does not necessarily represent my feelings for the players overall or during the regular season. This article was written prior to the preseason finale against Atlanta and won’t be part of my evaluation process.
A heads up, I intend on using the full grading scale through these reports. Not just giving players A’s to C’s. It may sound harsh but it’s as honest and fair as I can be.
Flipping over to the defense with the d-line.
Cam Heyward
Truthfully, Heyward isn’t a guy I spend much time watching in camp. As long as there’s nothing noticeably wrong with an established stud like him, there isn’t much to write. He’s still Superman strong. He still runs to the ball like an undrafted rookie. And he wears his heart on his sleeve. Heyward may be 34 but his tank isn’t close to empty. Pittsburgh has just been careful to manage his reps in summers like these.
Camp Grade: A
Keeanu Benton
The team’s third pick of the draft, it was an impressive summer. Benton is who the Steelers said he was and his time at Wisconsin, the college who runs about the closest defense to Pittsburgh’s, helped the team’s evaluation. The dude is built with a huge lower half. But he’s a quality athlete, not quite Javon Hargrave but flying in that airspace, with good flexibility and open-field speed. He’s active with his hands and a high-energy pass rusher. His opener against Tampa Bay was excellent before leaving with an ankle injury. It bothered him over the next week and he only played on special teams against Buffalo.
Benton does also need to work on his anchor against double-teams and two-gapping against the run. But he looks promising and a strong system and scheme fit.
Camp Grade: B+
Breiden Fehoko
If this was 1990, Breiden Fehoko would be a stud. He’s a classic one-gap plugger that just can’t be moved against the run. Barrell-chested with a stubby lower half, he’s got a Johnny Bravo body, all he did this camp was stop the run. In those team run periods, he balled out and earned Mike Tomlin’s praise.
But that’s his resume. As a pass rusher, there’s basically nothing there. He one-gapped and had a couple wins as a pass rusher in camp but most of that came against Kendrick Green, who can’t move to his left or right.
While Fehoko’s value is capped, it plays well with Pittsburgh’s ethos and in this division, especially once the weather gets bad. Getting a hat on gameday could be tough, though he’d be active if Montravius Adams is cut, but the team does like his old-school attitude.
Camp Grade: B
Montravius Adams
A nice camp for Adams who definitely needed it. He looked more explosive off the ball as he did when he was signed later in 2021, able to penetrate and get upfield. He’s not a super refined player and pass rusher who has a great first step but unrefined hand use and pass rush moves. But he held his own against the run with better pad level and anchor and ran first-team nose tackle all summer. He can also rotate into nickel packages. It feels like he has a chance to stick around by the d-line competition is deep.
Camp Grade: B
Larry Ogunjobi
It ended with a foot injury and health is the biggest concern with him, tied to an inconsistent game. When out there practicing, he didn’t look great but far from bad and made more noise against the run than I saw as a pass rusher. He just needs to stay healthy. And finish 2023 with more than 1.5 sacks like he did a year ago.
Camp Grade: B-
Armon Watts
Watts is competing with the likes of Loudermilk for a final spot along the d-line. He’s a different type of end. He’s longer, far more athletic, and a better pass rush who can discard blocks. But Watts is more erratic and off his feet in the run game, the downside to him compared to the steadier Loudermilk. It’s a tough call between those two and in theory, both could make the 53 if only two nose tackles are kept. Watts isn’t as niche but there’s no guarantee he’ll stick.
Camp Grade: B-
Isaiahh Loudermilk
Loudermilk is sorta like Terrell Edmunds. Limited ceiling, incremental progression. Of course, Loudermilk wasn’t the top-level athlete Edmunds was coming out and didn’t carry the weight of a first round pick but Loudermilk made slow but steady progress throughout his career. His pad level against the run is better and lower and he’s a more refined pass rusher. He got rid of his always-failing cross chop and uses more bull rushes and rips.
Still, his run defense isn’t as good as it should be and his pass rushing value is minimal. Overall, it was an above average camp and he’s completive but even if he makes the team, he’s just a rotational base end. It’s not bringing a ton to the table.
Camp Grade: B-
DeMarvin Leal
Leal is a little hard to figure out. First, the start to his camp was hampered by injuries and being unavailable. Carted off for breathing issues early one day (thankfully, he was fine and practiced the following day) while he turned an ankle and missed a couple practices later in the summer.
It wasn’t until the preseason opener that we got good eyes on him. His run defense was better than expected and his technique and hand use to shed blocks (rip moves, shrug releases) was better than anything he showed last year. And true to the Steelers’ word, he played DL and OLB, though most of the standup stuff came early in camp and was less evident as the calendar moved into mid-August.
Still, he’s lacking a go-to move as a pass rusher and gets stuck on blocks way too often for someone as athletically gifted as he his. His pass rush hasn’t matched that talent and his hand use isn’t refined. If anything, he’s regressed from last season. The Bills’ game was especially poor against the pass. He’s still only in his second-year, has missed time with injuries, and his rookie season was a roller coaster (injuries, position/weight changes, the general chaos of being a rookie) but he needs to show improvement. Fast.
Camp Grade: C+
Manny Jones
An interesting athlete, he was one of the d-linemen the team toyed around with at outside linebacker. In fact, he saw the most extensive time there, finishing out the Bills’ game at ROLB. A good athlete, he flashed as a pass rusher in moments during camp. It wasn’t consistent and reps were hard to come by with run defense not being his strongest suit, he does get pushed around, but he’s a dollar store version of DeMarvin Leal. There’s practice squad potential here.
Camp Grade: C
Jonathan Marshall
Plucked off the New York Jets’ practice squad last year, Marshall was quiet this summer. Stuck near the bottom of this deep group, the Steelers’ depth chart lists him as a nose tackle. But he played more defensive end than down the middle. Still, his tape was nondescript. A moment or two in run session, that was it. Marshall wasn’t awful, he stayed on his feet and wasn’t pushed around but his impact in the run game and especially as a pass rusher was empty. Practice squad at best for him and even then, that’s pushing it.
Camp Grade: D+
James Nyamwaya
Undrafted out of Merrimack, few players saw as little reps as he did. A fourth/fifth-stringer who would get a snap or two at the end of team periods, if he was lucky, he has size and length but that’s all I saw. He was stuck on blocks as a pass rusher and his in-game tape was middling. Through two preseason games, he logged just 14 snaps, one of which he was called for too many men and offsides and he tried but couldn’t hustle off the field against Tampa Bay.
To his credit, he was durable and practiced every day. Hopefully the team lets him keep a couple of Steelers’ T-shirts.
Camp Grade: D
STEELERS TRAINING CAMP GRADES
Quarterbacks
Running Backs
Tight Ends
Wide Receivers
Offensive Tackles
Interior Offensive Line
