We are under a week away from watching the Pittsburgh Steelers participate in a meaningful game of football. It’s been a long wait, for sure, but the light at the end of the tunnel is very much in sight. And it’s quite a bright light given the rampant positivity surrounding the offseason.
While much of that centers on the development of second-year QB Kenny Pickett, the excitement over this rookie class has been a big part of it as well, and we should see quite a few of them on the field on Sept. 10. That includes second-round DL Keeanu Benton, according to fellow lineman Montravius Adams.
“At the end of the day, I think he’ll be a guy that will play a lot”, Brian Batko of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quotes the veteran defensive tackle as saying about the rookie. “We’re gonna need him in some key moments, and he’s taken every step to get better”.
The 49th-overall draft pick out of Wisconsin, Benton played in a defensive scheme for the Badgers that made the Steelers comfortable in projecting him in their system. But where they were really impressed with his potential was at the Senior Bowl where he has the opportunity to showcase his potential as a playmaker and a pass-rusher.
Some minor injuries were an issue for the rookie during training camp, but he showed in practices and in the two preseason games in which he participated that he was capable of making an impact, including four tackles, three of which were defensive stops.
“I think he’s prepared for what we do and what he’s supposed to know”, Adams said. “Keeanu is way better than I was my rookie year at this point. I lacked a lot of fundamentals. He’s way, way more polished. He’s a guy who understands football, understands how to play the game”.
A former third-round pick of the Green Bay Packers, Adams spent his first four seasons in the league stuck behind Kenny Clark, but he’s seemingly found a home in Pittsburgh over the past three seasons. There were some questions over whether he would make the team this year, but he appears set to open the season as the starting nose tackle—for now.
One gets the sense that the Steelers will be eager to feed snaps to Benton, however, and his playing time could be determined by how well he performs with what he is given to work. They may bring him along a bit slowly at first, but he is the kind of talent where once you get him going, you just let him go.
At least that’s how I see it. I think it’s just a matter of him going on the field and proving at the next stage that he is capable of doing exactly what they assumed he would be capable of doing and doing it consistently over a large body of work. What the timeline looks for that exactly, I don’t know, but if Adams is expecting him to play sooner rather than later, I’m not going to argue.
