The Pittsburgh Steelers are right back to square one in their search for a slot corner, at least for the first half of the season. Cam Sutton was signed last month and instantly became the best option at that position, but he is now suspended for the first eight games of the season due to violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy. That puts the starting slot corner job back up for grabs. If it was anything like the beginning of OTAs prior to Sutton’s signing, veteran CB Josiah Scott could be first in line at training camp.
“Scott was running as the first-team nickel throughout the early portion of the spring before Sutton was signed. With Sutton’s suspension, he will be in the mix to grab that spot in the summer,” Mark Kaboly of The Athletic wrote in a defensive roster preview this morning.
I don’t know that we had received any official word on the pecking order at the slot corner position prior to Sutton’s signing, so it is interesting to know that Scott was the one getting the first-team opportunities.
He was a fourth-round pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2020 but was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles after his rookie season. He was released last August at the end of training camp and signed to the Steelers’ practice squad, but the Eagles ended up signing him away from the Steelers’ practice squad in mid-October. He ended up signing a Reserve/Future contract with the Steelers after the 2023 season.
Scott only has 575 defensive snaps in his career, and 388 of those came in 2022. He only played 17 defensive snaps in the 2023 season. It isn’t a ton of experience, but it is more than the other options currently on the Steelers’ roster. Grayland Arnold has 228 defensive snaps over four years, and Beanie Bishop Jr. is a rookie undrafted free agent.
Being the most experienced option, and also having experience with the team from being on the practice squad last year, it makes sense that Scott was receiving the starting reps early at spring practices.
During the 2022 season in which he played 16 games, starting four of them, Scott had eight total passes defensed, including two interceptions. Nearly 85 percent of his snaps were in the slot that season. Pro Football Focus had him down for five missed tackles and a passer rating of 121.6 allowed on coverage that season.
With Sutton out for eight weeks, whoever wins the starting nickel job will have a large opportunity ahead of him. The Steelers spent 59.1 percent of their time in sub-packages last season, including 37.1 percent in nickel. If the Steelers don’t end up signing a free agent like Patrick Peterson or Chandon Sullivan prior to camp over the next couple weeks, Scott could be first in line at slot corner with a decent opportunity to emerge on the other side as the Week 1 slot corner.
