o see his back \u201cinjury\u201d magically heals<\/a> and he gets back on the field. A more relevant thought is this: How can Pittsburgh get Samuel on the field?<\/p>\nHe\u2019s arguably one of the team\u2019s best 11 defenders. A conventional depth chart would put Samuel on the bench as the No. 3 corner behind Porter, once he returns, and Jamel Dean. Gluing him to the bench and only seeing action if and when there\u2019s injury isn\u2019t maximizing the team\u2019s talent.<\/p>\n
Where can Samuel fit? Pittsburgh may need to get creative. It\u2019s an incentive to use six defensive back dime packages. The Steelers didn\u2019t run a single snap of dime in 2025 under the old coaching staff. So far, the new collective hasn\u2019t shown it during the team\u2019s many two-minute drills. Samuel entering the field could come at the expense of a defensive lineman or Payton Wilson. The tradeoff might be worth it.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh could also try another approach, a base or nickel grouping with just one safety and three cornerbacks. The Steelers have occasionally used it in the past but may up the frequency to get Samuel additional snaps.<\/p>\n
How the pieces fit can be up for debate. Who would play in the slot? Samuel isn\u2019t ideal there in a full-time role, and the team will prefer Jalen Ramsey for his size, physicality, tackling, blitzing and run defense. Brandin Echols is also a viable option. But Samuel is a plus outside cover corner who can\u2019t waste away on the bench.<\/p>\n
Injuries ahead on the depth chart can always \u201csolve\u201d things. Jamel Dean has never been a pillar of health. It\u2019s one reason why Pittsburgh stocked the cornerback shelves this offseason, and one reason why we warned Omar Khan<\/a> not to consider trading away his surplus. Samuel is great depth, but his play is begging to be more than a backup. There needs to be a role for him in this defense. It\u2019s up to the coaches to find it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If there can be a star during four padless Pittsburgh Steelers training camp practices, it\u2019s clearly cornerback Asante…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":800396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[154063,349,1321,99],"class_list":["post-800395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-asante-samuel-jr","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}