Beanie Bishop Jr. hasn’t played a great deal in the second half of the Steelers’ season. Since Week 11, in fact, he has only played 30-plus snaps once. In the last two games, he played only six defensive snaps—but still managed his fourth interception. Not bad for a rookie college free agent, perhaps partly due to his emphasis on making every snap count.
“I know that I can’t control how much I play. The plays that I do have, I try to make sure that I don’t make any mistakes, be opportunistic, and try to [find the ball]”, Bishop said, via the Steelers’ website. “The ball, it finds good players, so just being where I’m supposed to be. Obviously, there’s only one football, so if I’m in zone, I get to see the ball and things like that. Just trying to go out there and be me still, even though I’m not playing as much. Just going out there and trying to stay ready”.
The Steelers targeted Bishop as a college free agent largely because of his ball skills. He picked off four passes in his final season at West Virginia, with 20 passes defensed. In his first season in the NFL, he managed to match that, including a pair of interceptions off Aaron Rodgers.
The Steelers probably didn’t sign Bishop thinking he would be Plan A for their primary nickel defender position. By the time the regular season started, though, he was virtually the answer by default. Attrition, injuries, suspension, and lack of opportunities deprived them of other options. But he also showed the coaches enough to trust him with the chance.
Beanie Bishop certainly went through his growing pains, but he started to settle in toward the middle part of the season. After the first eight games, the Steelers got Cameron Sutton back from suspension, who began to take on more of the snaps. On the whole, it’s hard to argue that has been in the best interests of the defense.
By year’s end, Bishop had accumulated 548 snaps on defense, roughly 50 percent of the load, playing in every game. In only one game did he fail to log a snap on defense. In all, he recorded 45 tackles, including two for loss, with half a sack, a fumble recovery, four interceptions, and seven passes defensed.
Given his drop in playing time, most of those statistics skew toward the first half of the season. Early on, the Steelers were using Bishop on 30-60 snaps per game. But once they had the more experienced and versatile Sutton at their disposal, they moved away from the rookie.
What approach will the Steelers take in the playoffs? Will Beanie Bishop Jr. get more playing time against the Ravens? In their first game, he was still logging about 50 percent of the snaps, but Sutton had only been back for one game. By the second Ravens game, he was down to about half that. And then he played four percent of the final two games combined.
