Former Pittsburgh Steelers DL Tyson Alualu signed with the Steelers in 2017, a move he called “the best decision I made in my career”. He ended up playing six seasons in Pittsburgh with 7.5 sacks, 16 tackles for a loss, 19 quarterback hits, and 158 total tackles.
But when Alualu was in college, he was trying to figure out how he would best line up in the NFL. Alualu went to the University of California, which switched from a 4-3 to a 3-4 defense when Alualu started there. So he turned to the tape to learn how to play defensive end in that system. And what better tape to watch than the Steelers? He studied both Aaron Smith and Brett Keisel to learn how they played the position.
“When I got to college and started watching film of what I might play at this level, it was the Steelers’ defense,” Alualu said on Thursday on the Christian Kuntz Podcast. “So I watched, it was Aaron Smith, Keisel. And if you watch any of my film back in college, I was doing the stance where my feet is like this wide, hand barely on the ground, and playing that 3-4 defense. I watched a lot of film on that little frog stance that they used to do and try to emulate how they played it.”
Smith and Keisel did not post eye-popping statistics during their respective careers. Smith played 13 seasons, all with the Steelers. He had 44 sacks, 84 tackles for loss, and 481 total tackles. Keisel played 12 seasons in the league, also all with the Steelers. He had 30 sacks, 33 tackles for loss, and 408 total tackles.
But they were extremely important to the success of the Steelers’ defense during the early 2000s. Smith was inducted into the Steelers Hall of Honor in 2023 in recognition of his incredible career. And current Steelers DL Cam Heyward gives Keisel a ton of credit for helping him get where he is today.
So it makes sense that Tyson Alualu would have watched both Smith and Keisel on film. It helped Alualu make the shift from defensive tackle in a 4-3 to a 3-4 defensive end. And that came after switching from playing running back when he was younger. Alualu may never be mentioned in the same breath as Smith or Keisel, but he was a quality addition in 2017. And those two were a big part of him getting to that point.
