If there is one glaring weakness on an otherwise impressive Pittsburgh Steelers defense, it is at slot corner. Nothing against Beanie Bishop Jr., but he more or less won the slot corner battle by default with his top competition getting injured toward the end of camp.
It is highly unusual to see an undrafted rookie start in Week 1 of their first season, but that will likely happen on Sunday when the Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Atlanta Falcons.
Bishop may not receive an official start, but the Steelers spent about 59.1 percent of their time in defensive sub-packages last year. They also have S DeShon Elliott to play in the slot for a big nickel package on passing downs, but Bishop will likely handle the early-down sub-package work, as dictated by the Falcons’ personnel.
Teryl Austin was asked Thursday if he thinks the Falcons will try to attack Bishop when he is in the game.
“You never know,” Austin said after practice in a transcript of the press conference provided by the team. “Like most things, we always prepare our guys for that. If you’re a young guy out there, you’ve just got to be ready. You will be tested, and if you handle the test, then they’ll go away from you. But if you don’t handle the test, you can expect it to keep coming.”
Bishop missed the second preseason game with an injury, and only played in the second half of the preseason finale after failing to practice for most of the week. He played 40 snaps on defense in the preseason, including 36 in the slot, per Pro Football Focus. The first preseason game in which he played 19 snaps in the slot was the only live-game action that he got experience against first-team players.
Throughout the offseason, Mike Tomlin repeatedly cautioned people against reading too much into Bishop’s listing as the first-team slot corner. It may have just been a motivation tactic, or an acknowledgement that he is just an undrafted rookie. But it doesn’t exactly instill a ton of confidence in the state of the slot corner position.
Though if the Steelers saw it as a huge concern, they likely would have made a waiver claim at roster cutdowns or at least signed a veteran after the fact. It is possible they could elevate Thomas Graham Jr. from the practice squad to have an extra body in there, and Graham impressed coaches throughout training camp.
Hopefully we don’t hear Bishop’s name too many times on Sunday. If we do, it will probably be because he didn’t “handle the test” and the Falcons chose to keep attacking him as a weakness of the defense.
