Did you catch what Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said yesterday when asked about Beanie Bishop Jr.? While he gave his usual spiel in refusing to douse an undrafted rookie with praise, he also issued a threat. In so many words, he let Bishop know that if he isn’t up to snuff in practice, Thomas Graham Jr. is playing.
Or perhaps Jalen Elliott, or Anthony Averett, or even Damontae Kazee. The point is, Beanie Bishop Jr. is the starting slot defender of record, but he has to earn playing time. He simply missed too much valuable time at the end of the summer for them to justify any other approach. Let’s go back and carefully parse exactly what Tomlin said when asked what Bishop has done to prove himself.
“I don’t know that he’s done it yet”, Tomlin said, via the team’s website. “We have player-elevation opportunities and things of that nature in the course of a work week that determines how we divide the labor up”.
“Player elevations”, Tomlin said. That means practice squad elevations, and teams may elevate two players from the practice squad to their game-day roster each week. Each player may be elevated three times per season to play in a game without being on the 53-man roster. So if Beanie Bishop isn’t ready to start on Sunday, then maybe Thomas Graham, on the practice squad, is.
The Steelers’ plans for the slot defender position hit hard times due to injury. They had Josiah Scott early on, and then Grayland Arnold, but they came and went. By the end, their options dwindled down to two juniors: Bishop and Graham.
Bishop, a rookie college free agent, spent most of training camp running with the first-team defense. That’s primarily because the Steelers wanted to get a long look at him and size him up. Graham, meanwhile, just quietly went about his business, making plays, and starting the preseason finale. Both dealt with injuries during training camp, but Graham stayed the healthiest at the most critical time.
So if the Steelers end up starting Thomas Graham in Atlanta rather than Beanie Bishop, why did they keep Bishop on the 53-man roster over Graham? Well, perhaps they felt better about keeping both by cutting Graham. Bishop would have had to clear waivers. While Graham would have gone through waivers, too, he has already been around the league. And they likely see a brighter future and higher ceiling in the rookie.
“Beanie is an exciting young guy”, Tomlin said. “We’ll watch him during the week, along with some others, and we’ll make decisions at the end of the week that’s best suited for winning this game”.
There is a reason the Steelers took such a hard look at Bishop throughout the offseason. But that doesn’t mean he is ready for primetime from his very first snap. His injury late in training camp couldn’t have been timed worse, coming just as he was looking to button up a starting job.
