Pittsburgh Steelers RB Najee Harris was a guest on Movin’ The Chains with Jim Miller and Pat Kirwan, and he touched on some of the team’s offseason additions. He’s a big fan of S Keanu Neal, whom he likened to former All-Pro safety Kam Chancellor.
“I was a fan of Keanu Neal. I tell him all the time and every time I see him, I’m like ‘Man, I used to watch you in Atlanta a lot.’ I call him a modern-day Kam Chancellor,” Harris said.
Chancellor was a four-time Pro Bowler and was a second-team All-Pro team twice. He was a key member of the Seattle Seahawks’ Legion of Boom defense, and his ability to get downhill and lay the wood as a safety was one of his biggest skills. Neal is a similar player albeit as not accomplished. He isn’t as skilled in coverage as a traditional safety but he’s great at coming down and making plays in the run game or the short passing game, so much so that the Dallas Cowboys moved him to linebacker during his stint with the team.
With the Steelers having two guys with really good ball skills in Minkah Fitzpatrick and Damontae Kazee at safety, Neal provides a different skill set. Last year, the Steelers wanted to run three-safety sets with Terrell Edmunds, Kazee and Fitzpatrick, but Kazee’s preseason injury messed up those plans.
With Neal offering tools that are similar to Edmunds with him being better in the run game than as a coverage safety, that’s going to be an option for the Steelers again in 2023.
Neal comes in a little under the radar given what Pittsburgh did this offseason, his addition getting lost in the shuffle a little bit in the offseason mix. But he made a Pro Bowl in 2017 and has 473 career tackles. His tackling ability should make the Steelers better against the run.
He’s also a veteran who knows what it takes to succeed in the NFL, and he’ll embrace whatever role he has with the Steelers. Harris is clearly a big fan of his addition, and I think he’s an underrated add to the defense.
Neal is also getting a good opportunity to get up to speed and see starter reps with Fitzpatrick excused from the team for a personal matter and Kazee down with a foot injury. Those reps should help Neal get quickly acclimated to what Pittsburgh wants to do defensively and learn the playbook quicker, which should work in his favor once the season starts.
It’s going to be fun to see how the Steelers deploy a lot of the versatile chess pieces they have on defense, including Neal. He could be a guy who makes more of an impact than a lot of people expect.
