When the Pittsburgh Steelers drafted DL Keeanu Benton in the second-round of the 2023 NFL Draft, they were expecting to get a guy that can put his hand in the pile quickly. That was DC Teryl Austin’s hope the night they drafted Benton, and that appears to be his stance at the conclusion of the preseason, stating he and CB Joey Porter Jr. have shown enough to be ready to contribute immediately at the start of the regular season.
While Benton should see the field Week One against the San Francisco 49ers, it may be a bit optimistic to expect him to see heavy snaps on defense the first several weeks of his rookie season. As Alex Kozora of Steelers Depot noted during his time at training camp, veteran DL Montravius Adams took most of the first-team reps at nose tackle during the summer. Seeing as he played in all 17 games last season with nine starts at nose tackle, it’s reasonable to expect Adams to get the start in Pittsburgh’s home opener against the 49ers next Sunday, and likely have a higher snap count than Benton, at least to start the 2023 campaign.
If you look back at previous Steelers’ rookie defensive linemen, you see a similar trend of easing the young blood into the lineup over the course of the season. For example, the Steelers drafted DL Stephon Tuitt in the second round back in 2014, but he hardly saw the field to begin the season. Tuitt failed to surpass playing 50% of the defensive snaps until Week 13 where his snap percentage never dropped below 85%. The Steelers infamously had veteran DL Cam Thomas running ahead of Tuitt to start the season, coming over as a free agent from the Chargers as he started nine games, but logged only 11 total tackles and 0.5 sacks on the year.
The Steelers were less hesitant getting DL Javon Hargrave on the field his rookie season back in 2016, getting up to 69% of the defensive snaps as soon as Week Six. Still, Hargrave never saw more than 35% of the defensive snaps the first four weeks of the season as Pittsburgh tried to rotate him and DL Daniel McCullers to help ease the rookie into the lineup at the start of the season.
Benton has flashed during preseason action, being graded as the top rookie defensive lineman against the run while only playing 48 defensive snaps. He missed the Week Two game against the Buffalo Bills with an ankle injury. He came back and looked explosive against the Atlanta Falcons in the preseason finale, clogging up running lanes while putting pressure on the quarterback as a pass rusher.
Still, Adams didn’t look bad in the preseason either, and should expect to see the majority of the snaps over Benton to start the 2023 campaign. Hopefully, Benton can get acclimated into the lineup on a faster rate like Hargrave did compared to Tuitt. That should be the case since Pittsburgh has become more open to playing their rookies earlier in recent seasons. We should expect Benton to eventually take over the starting nose tackle job at some point during the season as well as factor in sub packages. However, Steelers fans should be prepared to see less Benton and more Adams to start the season with the timetable for that transition likely happening between the first four-to-six weeks of the year.
