DeMarvin Leal is facing enormous pressure entering the final year of his contract, trying everything he can to stick around. Always something of a ‘tweener in terms of physique, during OTAs, the Steelers have him working at outside linebacker. This isn’t the first time he has repped or even played there, but this is a most concerted effort.
While that doesn’t mean that would be his new full-time position, the Steelers are trying to enable him. They want to give Leal every opportunity, not just to excel, but to simply make the team. Right now, they would appear to have a full defensive line room, and an outside linebacker room.
But did the Steelers get more—or less—than they bargained for when they drafted DeMarvin Leal in 2022? One wonders. “What I’ve been told is he didn’t get much good teaching at Texas A&M. And after they drafted him, they realized this was gonna be a little bit of a project”, Mark Kaboly said on the Kaboly + Mack podcast.
A third-round pick, DeMarvin Leal played three seasons at Texas A&M. In 34 games, he recorded 132 tackles with 13 sacks and an interception. He had a bit of a breakout season in 2021 with 8.5 sacks, which likely prompted him to declare early.
Leal spent his entire Aggies career under Jimbo Fisher as head coach. They had an inconsistent three-year run, though did win the Orange Bowl in 2020. Fisher didn’t last too much longer, fired after the 2023 season. In the aftermath, his coaching staff faced heavy criticism. “There was 100% a lack of discipline, a lack of accountability”, an ESPN article quotes one former Aggies player as saying.
Maybe DeMarvin Leal just wanted to get away from Jimbo Fisher. With that said, I don’t know that the positional coaching was the issue. His position coach was Elijah Robinson, who seems respected well enough. He also coached Nnamdi Madubuike on the same line, and it generally wasn’t the defensive line that was the issue.
According to the post-mortem, the problem with the Jimbo Fisher era at Texas A&M was that everything had to be his way. He was a domineering presence over his coaching staff and perhaps didn’t let his coaches fully coach. While Leal improved over the course of his college career, perhaps he didn’t receive the coaching that worked for him.
Still, you can only make excuses for so long, and DeMarvin Leal has had NFL coaching for three years. But is the Steelers’ Karl Dunbar up to the task? Has he sufficiently developed players since they brought him in? I think we can debate that, even with Keeanu Benton, going into his third season.
The Steelers did keep feeding his unit this offseason, drafting Derrick Harmon and Yahya Black. Ironically, it may be the two rookies who knock Leal off the roster altogether.
