Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has lofty expectations for his young defensive tackle, second-round pick Keeanu Benton. The rookie took over a starting role in the middle of the season and consistently played well. Though he posted a final stat line of 36 tackles, one tackle for loss, and one sack, those numbers are not indicative of his skill level.
As our Alex Kozora pointed out, he has the tools to put up much better numbers. He knows how to win at the line of scrimmage. He can beat his man in one-on-one situations. He has a vicious club hand that won him a number of reps, but as Kozora points out, he needs to add to his arsenal.
Surely he’s aware of that. He gave a fairly critical assessment of his own rookie season, telling Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review of his biggest takeaway from the year that “there’s a lot of work to be done”.
Coming out of Wisconsin as a 21-year-old, Benton was a highly touted interior defensive lineman. It wasn’t in the least bit surprising when the Steelers targeted him in the draft. They ultimately selected him 49 overall with their third pick, their second in Round Two.
We identified Benton as a perfect fit for the Steelers a year ago, in fact exactly one year ago yesterday. A week later, Benton at the Senior Bowl relayed that head coach Mike Tomlin told him he was on the Steelers’ radar. The greatest shock of the year? Certainly not. But there’s still work ahead for him to get where he can be.
“I know I need to be better with my football IQ in general”, Benton admitted. “It’d gotten better as the season went on, but that’s probably still the biggest place I can grow. Not saying it’s the first time I have realized it, but I’m still getting to kind of know that football IQ stuff”.
No doubt he has learned as much as he can while watching Cameron Heyward work. Unfortunately, that probably wasn’t as much as was hoped. Heyward dealt with a groin injury throughout training camp that ultimately resulted in a full tear that required surgery after the season opener. He missed the next six games and a number of practices afterward.
Getting that first year under your belt is always big, perhaps especially so for linemen. It’s a whole other level of combat in the trenches at the professional level. Benton feels that he showed he can compete physically against NFL talent, but now he’s got to catch up mentally.
That’s the next step in building what could be the next great Steelers defensive lineman. Tomlin said in his season-ending press conference that he believes Benton can be dominant “sooner rather than later”. He already dominates in fits and starts. Now it’s getting him to do that on a regular basis.
