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: DL DeMarvin Leal
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: The second-year veteran is in line to play a much larger role over the course of the next couple months while Cameron Heyward gets set for and then rehabs from groin surgery. Suffering an injury of his own during the opener, Leal confirmed that he is okay and ready to go.
As I try to remind, the basis of a stock evaluation being up or down or neutral can be any number of different things. In this case, for Leal, it is up not because of anything that he did in the first regular-season game, but what came after.
He exited that game with an injury, but it does not appear to be serious. He confirmed to reporters yesterday that he expects to play against the Browns. Head coach Mike Tomlin hardly even gave him a passing mention when discussing injured players during his Tuesday press conference, which tells you he’s good to go.
And go he will, because the Steelers are not going to have Cameron Heyward for a while. The perennial Pro Bowler went down with a groin injury and exited the season opener as well, but he is not going to be back for a while.
Tomlin confirmed on Tuesday that Heyward would be heading for surgery to repair his injury. He should not be expected back for roughly two months or so, possibly even longer depending on how things go. Either way, he is going to miss a big chunk of the season, and as Leal put it, that means it’s the next generation up.
As the phrase implies, it’s not going to be a one-man job filling Heyward’s shoes. Leal should still play a prominent role in it, perhaps a feature role. Also contributing will be Isaiahh Loudermilk and rookie Keeanu Benton, perhaps veteran Armon Watts, who was a healthy scratch in the opener.
Leal did register three tackles, including one for loss, in his 26 snaps in the opener against the San Francisco 49ers. He would have had a fourth, for no gain, but the play was negated by a penalty on the 49ers.
While I noted that this stock evaluation was not based on Leal’s play in the opener, he actually did have a solid game, particularly against the run. He did register a hit on the quarterback on just 10 pass-rush snaps, but there’s certainly still meat on that particular bone for him to get better.
