The Pittsburgh Steelers have a need at cornerback, both depth on the outside and a starter in the slot. There is no obvious option on the roster for either of those roles. Cory Trice Jr. looked promising last year in OTAs and minicamp but is a big question mark coming off a torn ACL. The next prospect that seems to have the most promise to contribute in 2024 is West Virginia CB Beanie Bishop Jr. He was signed as an undrafted free agent following the draft.
He is a little undersized at 5091, 180 pounds, but he had great production his final year of college and the Steelers showed interest in him during the pre-draft process. He transferred to WVU from Minnesota after originally playing at Western Kentucky for his first few seasons in college.
Outside of Beanie Bishop’s final season at WKU, when he had three interceptions and four passes defensed, his production was quite low. But he exploded in 2023 with 20 pass breakups and four interceptions. I spent all of Monday afternoon combing through his 2023 tape for every last one of those stats.
This film room is focused on those areas, but you can also check out Jonathan Heitritter’s film room on his tackling abilities and run support from last week.
Before we get into the tape from each game, I have some general takeaways from watching this much of Bishop’s tape. With 20 PBUs, he obviously is in position to make plays a lot, and that really showed up throughout this review. He stays in phase with receivers and has the change of direction and athletic ability to stay with receivers out of their breaks. He is also good at coming downhill and times his hits well to break up passes that he can’t use his arms to punch at.
Not everything was perfect; Beanie Bishop’s size wasn’t the only reason he went undrafted. He makes too much contact past the allotted five-yard limit and can be grabby out of breaks. He also doesn’t get his head around at times, which will more often than not lead to penalties. But he does a nice job with his punch timing to deflect passes or disrupt a receiver’s focus when he has his back to the play, which is a skill in itself. All of this can be seen in the various clips of his interceptions and PBUs below.
All 2023 Interceptions – 4
Penn State – 1 PBU
Duquesne – 1 PBU
Texas Tech – 3 PBUs
TCU – 2 PBUs
Oklahoma State – 4 PBUs
UCF – 1 PBU
BYU – 5 PBUs
Oklahoma – 2 PBUs
Cincinnati – 1 PBU
