Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman DeMarvin Leal disappointed to such an extent during his second season that he spent much of the second half of the year on the bench. Going into Year 3, the former third-round draft pick has a lot to prove. He has the athletic and physical ability to raise his game, but actually doing so is another matter.
For better or worse, the offseason is a time for speculation and theorization, leading to all sorts of predictions. One of the popular offseason features is the idea of “breakout” candidates—young and possibly underperforming players stepping up.
Perhaps somewhat unenthusiastically, Mark Kaboly of The Athletic selected Leal as his breakout candidate earlier this month. He prefaced that by noting there “aren’t many options” on the Steelers’ roster, however, and he’s probably right. But we’ll get to that.
“I’ll go with DeMarvin Leal”, he wrote in a mailbag article for the outlet last week. “He showed so much promise in his rookie year and so little in his second year. I think he can be a good player but will need to work to just get an opportunity at this point”.
As a rookie, Leal produced 14 tackles with one TFL and three passes defensed across 175 snaps. I don’t know that this qualifies as “so much promise”, but of course especially for defensive linemen you need to look beyond the numbers.
And to his credit, Leal did manage to flash his potential here and there in 2022. His athleticism and versatility are his calling card, and just by virtue of his ability to line up in a number of places, he garnered some enthusiasm heading into his second season.
But he didn’t break out last year—at all. In 12 games, he managed 15 tackles with two TFLs, one sack, and one pass defensed. The sack that he recorded, in Week 2 against QB Deshaun Watson, should have resulted in a facemask penalty. You can see for yourself in the header image accompanying this article.
Leal primarily has Cameron Heyward to thank for topping 200 snaps in 2023. He only played 25 or so snaps in the final 10 games of the year, including the playoffs, after Heyward returned from injury.
Indeed, the Steelers made him an inactive healthy scratch for half of those games. He lost out to Isaiahh Loudermilk and Armon Watts for playing time in that regard. While the Steelers lost Watts in free agency, they added Dean Lowry. Lowry is arguably an upgrade, and they still have Loudermilk returning as well.
Outside of Heyward, Keeanu Benton, and perhaps Larry Ogunjobi, however, nobody in that defensive line room has more talent than Leal. That’s why it’s tempting for people to continue to hold out hope for a turnaround, and not without grounds. Perhaps the Steelers can help him out by limiting him to specific roles rather than asking him to try to do everything, for a start.
Still, the choice of Leal speaks to the lack of quality depth on the roster. Young players like Joey Porter Jr. and Keeanu Benton have arguably already “emerged”, while Nick Herbig has a difficult path toward playing time. Cory Trice Jr. is going to spend his summer rehabbing. Calvin Austin III is perhaps one worthy candidate, though he’s not an optimal fit in Arthur Smith’s offense.
But who else are you going with? Darius Rush or Darnell Washington, perhaps Nate Herbig or Mark Robinson, maybe Trenton Thompson? In this light, I can’t really fault Kaboly for his choice. By far the most tantalizing possibility is, of course, QB Justin Fields. But he needs to get on the field first.
