Pittsburgh Steelers CB Patrick Peterson has played sparingly at safety for the team this season, with 39 snaps at free safety entering today’s game against the Indianapolis Colts. With Pittsburgh losing three safeties at different points in the game due to Damontae Kazee’s ejection and injuries to Minkah Fitzpatrick and Trenton Thompson, Peterson was tasked with moving to safety while Thompson recovered from his stinger. Peterson credited the reps he received at safety during training camp for making him comfortable and familiar with the position.
“We all know Minkah wasn’t with us, two weeks in training camp. That’s when I had my opportunity to kind of get my feet wet, and Coach Grady [Brown], man, he must’ve seen the future. I think if I wouldn’t have had those looks in training camp and OTAs, I think I would’ve been like a deer in headlights,” Peterson said via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on YouTube.
Peterson said that he felt “comfortable” at safety because of the reps he got before the season started. Obviously, it wasn’t ideal for the Steelers to have to turn to Peterson at safety, but after Kazee’s ejection and Fitzpatrick’s injury, Thompson and Miles Killebrew were the team’s lone healthy safeties. When Thompson went down, that meant it was up to Peterson as the only player who was active with any real experience at the position.
Having prior game reps has also probably helped Peterson become comfortable, and I think he was summing up the entirety of his experience playing safety for Pittsburgh this season. He’s talked before about how the plan upon signing was for him to move around a little bit, and while it’s happened less frequently in recent weeks, he did see 18 snaps at safety in Week Nine against the Tennessee Titans. So it wasn’t anything completely new when he had to step in at the position tonight.
It’s good that the Steelers have someone who can play in a pinch the way Peterson did, but as a whole, they weren’t good enough at all tonight. Losing Fitzpatrick and Kazee early in the game was a major blow, but they couldn’t stop Indianapolis and the Colts offense just ran all over Pittsburgh’s defense. Offensively, the Steelers struggled after getting out to a 13-0 lead, and now the team is 7-7 and a playoff appearance doesn’t seem likely.
We’ll see Peterson’s usage going forward, but I don’t think he’s someone who’s going to see more than a few snaps at most a game at safety. It is good to know that, if necessary — like it was tonight — the Steelers can move the veteran around a little bit more than usual.
Watch the full media session with Peterson below.
