Only eight players wearing No. 99 have appeared in a regular-season game for the Steelers. The list of those who have worn it with distinction shrinks to just two: LB Levon Kirkland and DE Brett Keisel (no offense, Larry Ogunjobi).
Derrick Harmon is the latest Steeler to wear No. 99, and the team has high hopes for its latest first-round draft pick.
So does Keisel, especially since he and Harmon also share a position.
“I want him to take that number to the top and have a Hall of Fame career,” Keisel told Steelers Depot last week. “He’s a really nice kid, and everything I’ve heard about him has been great, his story and the things he’s overcome to get to this point. He’s definitely battle-tested. Hopefully he can be another one of those anchors in the trenches.”
He almost has to be for the Steelers.
Cam Heyward played at an otherworldly level in 2024, but he turned 36 in May. How much longer can he play – and play well – at such a brutally physical position? Harmon is the next man up, and not just because he will start as a rookie barring injury or the Oregon product looking completely overmatched in the Steelers’ three preseason games.
He is next in the lineage of Steelers 3-4 defensive ends, one that includes Kimo von Oelhoffen, Aaron Smith, Stephon Tuitt.
And, of course, Keisel and Heyward.
The two are still very close and Keisel and Smith helped Heyward learn a uniquely challenging position in the Steelers’ defense after they made him a first-round pick 2011.
That is what von Oelhoffen and Smith did for Keisel as he fought his way onto the Steelers’ roster in 2002 as a seventh-round draft pick. Veterans helping the younger guys still means something to Keisel.
And that is why his connection to Harmon goes beyond the two sharing a jersey number and position.
“I saw a picture the other day of Cam and [Harmon] working together and Cam teaching him some stuff and that’s kind of how it was with all of us in our room,” Keisel said. “We really tried to bring the young guys along because you’re going to need them at some point out there to make a stop.”
The sooner for the Steelers the better when it comes to Harmon.
