Through two weeks of practice, Beanie Bishop Jr. has been running with the Steelers’ first-team defense, as he did at the start of his rookie season. But he finished the year practically on the bench, and he doesn’t want to go through that again. How everything plays out remains to be seen, but he currently appears to be in a good position.
“It looks like, at this point right now, that Beanie Bishop is your nickel”, Mark Kaboly said on the Kaboly + Mack podcast. “Now, it’s really early. I don’t know if they’re just giving him that first chance, maybe throwing [Brandin] Echols back in”.
Discussing the situation and his rookie season further, Kaboly did inject some logic into the hype. Having been reminded of Bishop’s nose for the football, he added, “You can’t ignore them freaking benching him, either”.
Largely due to a lack of options, the Steelers promoted Beanie Bishop to the starting nickel role. He held that job for the first half of the season, but after Cameron Sutton returned from his suspension, their roles gradually reversed.
By the end of the season, Bishop was hardly seeing the field, even as the defense—and Sutton—struggled. It’s telling that the Steelers did not re-sign Sutton, instead turning to Brandin Echols. They also drafted Donte Kent, another possible candidate for Bishop’s job, in the seventh round.
But Beanie Bishop may well be the favorite, especially with a year under his belt and in this system. “I think he’s going to get better”, Kaboly said. “You have to be the smartest guy on the field to play nickelback. Because it’s more than just read and react. You’ve got to anticipate what’s going on a lot more. You’ve got to know what you’re doing there”.
And Bishop himself sees the growth in his own game from his first season to now going into his second. The game is slowing down, in particular, Bishop spending less time thinking and more time reacting. He has also leaned on veterans like Darius Slay to pick up on any nuggets they are willing to drop.
As a rookie, Bishop intercepted four passes, though some were of a fortuitous variety. Like many of the Steelers’ recent nickel defenders, he is also undersized. But unlike others, he has speed and quickness. As long as he can hold up against the run, there may well be a role for him.
As Kaboly acknowledged, it’s still really early in the proceedings. While Beanie Bishop may be in the driver’s seat, he may also just be seeing incumbent perks. Echols has more experience, but not so much more, and he is new to the defense. Kent is a rookie, so having Bishop in there lets them run the defense more smoothly.
In other words, the real competition hasn’t begun yet. Again, Bishop may be in “pole position”, so to speak, but he’ll still have to earn the job. And if nobody ends up earning it, the Steelers may have to go out and find someone else.
