The Pittsburgh Steelers are certainly taking a long, hard look a rookie free agent CB Beanie Bishop Jr. Things may change as time moves on, but so far, they are throwing everything at him, seeing how he responds. Wednesday marked arguably his biggest challenge—going one-on-one against George Pickens.
Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writes that defensive backs coach Grady Brown specifically called for Bishop during a red-zone drill in which a defensive back has one-on-one coverage against a receiver. Fellow rookie Ryan Watts stepped up when Pickens lined up, but Brown called for his slot cornerback.
George Pickens is 6-3, in case you need the reminder, and Beanie Bishop Jr. is 5-9. The wide receiver has a half-foot height advantage here, but that’s what Brown looked for. “No, no, no, no”, Adamski wrote of Brown shouting. “I want Beanie!”.
According to Adamski, Bishop won his first rep against Pickens, and then Brown called for the same again. Of course, there is a caveat to the diminutive DB’s triumph, the reporter notes. By his account, the pass on the first rep from Justin Fields was off-target. On the second play, Pickens caught the ball, but Bishop forced him out of bounds, according to Aaron Becker. Becker also says that it was Mike Tomlin who called for the rematch, but who knows.
A college free agent rookie out of West Virginia, Beanie Bishop Jr. signed with the Steelers in April. He made some noise during the spring, but even he didn’t anticipate the extent of his work in training camp. The Steelers have consistently run him with the first-team defense throughout the first week of camp. And throwing him at George Pickens’ feet was just the latest step in their feeling him out.
Bishop said that Grady Brown “just wanted me to get that work in before games when some teams might have a bigger guy in the slot and try the slot fade and things like that”, according to Adamski. “Just being able to get that work in right now is crucial”.
The Steelers have a history of “angry little men” in the slot that Bishop wants to live up to. You can take it back to William Gay, whom Tomlin drafted in his first year here back in 2007. After Gay came the prototype, Mike Hilton, followed by Arthur Maulet and Chandon Sullivan.
The Steelers hope they have found their next big hit with Beanie Bishop Jr. While they did not draft him, they also did not have a seventh-round pick. They did prioritize signing him by offering him a $25,000 signing bonus, fairly large for Steelers college free agents.
“I always just go out there with the mentality that I am going to win”, Adamski quotes Bishop as saying. “I don’t really plan to lose — other than if my technique is bad, and technique can always be fixed. Mentality is hard to coach”.
I think it’s fair to say that Bishop is showing he has the mentality for the job. But he still has a few more tests to pass before they trust him with it. With Cameron Sutton set to serve an eight-game suspension, they need to be sure right away.
