Following the season opener, the Pittsburgh Steelers brought back one of their own in safety Terrell Edmunds. The team’s first round selection in the 2018 draft, Edmunds played his first five seasons in the Steel City, since spending time with the Philadelphia Eagles, Tennessee Titans, and Jacksonville Jaguars.
With other teams, defensive opportunities were far less than his time with Pittsburgh. Considering this, along with Minkah Fitzpatrick and DeShon Elliott in the fold, his likely immediate role could be on special teams. So, I wanted to look at his career contributions in that regard.
Here are safeties regular season snaps and grades on special teams since 2018, with Edmunds results highlighted:
What jumps out right away is Edmunds most recent 2023 season, where he was comfortably above the mean in snaps and grades among safeties in the six-year sample size (71.8 grade, 217 snaps). He was a core special teamer, playing on five units.
Though his final 2022 season with Pittsburgh was far less opportunity (107 snaps), Edmunds posted his best career special teams grade (75.1). Very encouraging to see, showing growth the last two seasons and becoming an above average special teamer.
Prior to this, Edmunds spent far less time on special teams as a defensive starter, with well below-average opportunities, along with below the mean grades. His 2018 rookie year included his most special teams snaps in a season (222), eerily comparable opportunity to last season, but the quality was far better in the latter.
For example, Edmunds had three special teams tackles but two missed tackles in 2018, compared to seven total tackles and no misses in 2023. He also earned a solid 80.2 tackling grade on defense in 2023, ranking 11th among safeties (min. 450 snaps).
Speaking of his defense, an encouraging fact on Edmunds was pass rushing. Here are safeties total pass rush grades, and in true pass sets (eliminating plays that help out the offense, such as play action, screens and RPOs.):
Edmunds was a key contributor as a pass rusher in 2023. His 76.1 pass rush grade ranked solidly at tenth, but shined even brighter in true pass sets with an excellent 90.3 grade that ranked fourth-best out of the 55 qualifying safeties. This included three pressures and two sacks in totality on 17 pass rushes. Two pressures and both sacks came in true pass sets, with the latter also tying for fourth-most.
That production is not an outlier either, including another two sacks in 2022 with Pittsburgh, making for back-to-back campaigns. Edmunds also provided at least four pressures and one sack in four out of five years with Pittsburgh with a grand total of 25 pressures and seven sacks in his career.
While it’s a wait-and-see game on what Edmunds’ role and opportunities will look like, the findings of Edmunds strengths on defense and special teams were encouraging to find.
With so many special teamers that Pittsburgh lost from last season, and less than desirable results in 2024 overall, the data points to Edmunds hopefully being a nice contributor to a positive trend for the unit. Pairing this with his experience in the Steelers defense, and providing versatile alignments throughout his career (including deep, box, and slot), the depth in the secondary also looks brighter.
If Edmunds seeing the field comes to fruition, here’s to hoping the reunion and the findings pan out as well as it appears on paper.
