As he sees it, the Steelers brought in veteran CB Darius Slay to do one thing: “Basically just playing ball”. The 34-year-old former Pro Bowler is the latest veteran CB2s they’ve brought in recently. Before him, they had Patrick Peterson in 2023, and then Donte Jackson last year.
Peterson is a future Hall of Famer, in all likelihood, and perhaps Slay will be, as well. He comes to Pittsburgh with six Pro Bowls in his past, though he missed it last year. Had the Eagles not advanced to the Super Bowl, he might have gone as an alternate, but he’ll take the ring, I’m sure.
Speaking to reporters yesterday about his prior relationship with Steelers DC Teryl Austin, he said the plan is simple. “Basically just playing ball”, he assessed of his conversations about their intentions with him.
Throughout his career, Darius Slay has played a lot in man coverage. It’s fair to question whether the Steelers will still ask that of him now, as it was with Patrick Peterson. While he suggested they haven’t really discussed that yet, he believes he can still do it very well.
Teryl Austin served as the Detroit Lions’ defensive coordinator for four years with Darius Slay. From Slay’s second season to his fifth—his best—Austin was there developing him. In 2017, his fifth season, he led the NFL with eight interceptions and 26 passes defensed, named first-team All-Pro.
The following season, the Lions cleaned house and dissolved the coaching staff. Austin interviewed for the head coaching job but didn’t get it, moving on as DC for the Bengals. By 2019, he was with the Steelers, named DC in 2022. Now he is reunited with Darius Slay, arguably his greatest success.
“I had him when I was in Detroit. He got some of the similarities still, but he has progressed a lot more”, Slay said of Austin. “It’s like old days, getting back together, hanging out. He does a great job explaining details, and the coaches do as well. I’m just here to learn and keep learning”.
The Steelers hope to say the “old days” of Darius Slay, too, rather than the old Darius Slay—the 34-year-old. They will, one hopes, recognize that he is no longer a spring chicken, of course. He didn’t have his best season in 2024, though arguably he still has more meat on the bone than Peterson did when they signed him.
Part of the reason the Steelers signed Slay is because the Eagles released him. Pittsburgh actively worked to protect its compensatory pick investments for 2026. In signing Slay, a street free agent, rather than a compensatory free agent, they avoided damaging compensatory gains.
Now, they might have signed him anyway, agreeing to just a one-year, $10 million deal. For now, they are content with stopgap solutions opposite Joey Porter Jr. Now Darius Slay is the young man’s latest “older brother”, so to speak, a role he embraces. But at the end of the day, he’s still about basically just playing ball.
