Pittsburgh Steelers SIGNED Asante Samuel Jr. & Preseason STANDOUT Sebastian Castro Rejoins The Squad

Pittsburgh Steelers SIGNED Asante Samuel Jr. & Preseason STANDOUT Sebastian Castro Rejoins The Squad

Damn it. Now I’m about to start thinking we got a chance. So, you’re telling me there’s a chance? Big Deak news? It’s happening. It’s official. Steelers got a reinforcement for the defense, particularly in that secondary. Asante Samuel Jr. is going to be a Pittsburgh Steeler. He signed him with us. Uh, we talked about how much sense it made, but you know, I wasn’t trying to get my hopes up completely, but the Steelers definitely need quarterback help. And Asante Samuel Jr. is a good quarterback when healthy. He’s like a top 20, top 15 quarterback throughout the course of his uh career up to this point. But we know that he had to undergo spinal fusion surgery. He just got cleared what, a week, week and a half ago and he was going to do his due diligence, make his rounds, visit with teams that were in need of his services. And what’s funny is with him signing today on Tuesday, he didn’t even visit with the Steelers. At least to my knowledge, he’s supposed to visit with us tomorrow. So, it’s either the other teams that he visit with botched the meetings up that bad. He’s like, “Yeah, these guys suck. They don’t know what the hell they’re doing. and I’m going to sign with the Steelers. Or maybe he saw the Steelers on Sunday Night Football against his former team and he’s like, “Okay, yeah, they they need me as soon as I sign there. I’m probably going to be starting day one.” Like, you know, there’s not going to be any ramp up period. Although, he is joining the practice squad initially. So, I don’t know if we’re going to see him right away this week. And I’m sure coming off of that surgery and everything, there’s going to be some rust that needs knocked off. But after witnessing what our secondary has been doing these last few weeks and what this defense overall has been doing, I wouldn’t mind giving Asante Samuel Jr. the Kyle Duggar treatment and just getting him out there this week because what could be worse at this point? Darius Slay, he’s likely going to be out with a concussion. We saw what Brandon Eckles uh was doing on Sunday Night Football. It’s like why not? And here’s the thing with the Sante Sam Jr. that I guess I didn’t realize. Uh even though he has the size for a slot corner, he’s played predominantly outside with the Chargers. He actually hasn’t got that many slot snaps, even though I feel like he could do that if asked. He was he was an outside guy. So, the combination may be JPJ on the outside, Asante Samu Jr. on the outside, uh and then I don’t know, do we put Eckles at slot? Brandon Foko, who used to play with the Steelers, does a lot of tweeting out there about Steelers stuff and Steelers talk, is saying like that should be the combination. JBJ, Sante, Samuel outside, Eckles inside, Duggar, Ramsay, safety. I’m just like, can we do something instead of Eckles in the slot? Can we figure out something? Maybe we we bump down Jaylen Ramsay. Uh because we did just pick up Sebastian Castro. Maybe we could give him some time. picked up Sebastian Castro uh and the Juan Thornhill release like that was the corresponding move. Tomlin talked about it today said Juan Thornnehill’s play just really wasn’t up to snuff and we were excited at the prospects of bringing back Castro. You guys let go of Juan Thornhill who went from being a starter to a guy that you get player that you guys didn’t even call upon as a backup. What happened to lead to his being like let go of the team? You know, the the play wasn’t up to snuff. Um and and and Castro was available to us. Uh we went through the team development process with Castro. Thought he had a good camp. Um good preeason. Um he played his tail off in that practice against the Bucks. I think that’s why, you know, they stole him from us. Remember with Castro, he was looking pretty good in training camp and preeason. It’s just that I felt like we had so much safety depth and like we picked up Chuck Clark, we had Thornhill, Elliot was healthy, we still had a Miles Kellib even though Kellib is a special teams ace. He’s designated as a safety. We had a lot going on there where we just didn’t really have the room for Castro even though he was playing good. I think we let him go hoping that we could bring him back on the practice squad, but Tampa Bay picked him up and it was looking like yeah, that just wasn’t going to happen anymore. Sebastian Castro uh wasn’t going to be a Steeler in the foreseeable future, but the opportunity came and we picked up Castro. Obviously, Tomlin wasn’t pleased with Juanthornho’s play. I don’t think any of us was pleased with it either. There was a reason why we picked up Kyle Duggar. There’s a reason, you know, we moved Jaylen Ramsey to safety and Thornhill’s snaps over the last couple weeks dwindled down to zero in terms of defensive snaps. So, it’s just like, yeah, this this isn’t going to work anymore. Why not give someone like Sebastian Castro a chance? Who you probably think right now his play can at least be even with Juan Thornnehill, but has more upside, has more of a ceiling, could maybe be part of your future uh with the Pittsburgh Steelers down the line. So, I wouldn’t mind seeing Castro. Like, as I’m trying to think of these secondary combinations we could potentially do, why not Castro in the slot for a little bit? Why not Castro maybe at safety bump up Jaylen Ramsay to the slot? Who knows? But, uh, I like the Asante Samuel Jr. pickup. I mean, it’s so low risk. We’re picking him up on the practice squad right now. Um, but really potential high reward. could be a starting quarterback for us on that outside providing us almost like a Castro more youth on the defense. You know, this off season we signed all these veterans aging giving them like this one last chance on like a prove it one-year deal to try to see if they could recalibrate their career and have a little bit of a resurgence. But with Awan Thornnehillo, it seems like with Chuck Clark too, it just really ain’t happening. uh Darius Slay, he hasn’t been living up. So, it’s like why not try to get a little bit younger on defense, have be a little bit more spry, be a little bit more dynamic, be a little bit more elusive, all all that type of stuff that a guy that’s in his at 25, 26 can provide as opposed to being in their early 30s. So, yeah, this is low risk, high reward move with Asante Samuel Jr., But with us also having Castra, I wouldn’t mind just mixing it up again like we did going into that Colts game and we knew that was out of necessity because of uh some of the injuries and whatnot. Moving Jaylen Ramsey to safety, having Duggar start only after a couple practices, but now again seeing what we did Sunday night football, even though our defense was a little bit better, but you saw Eckles out there, Darius Slay, you know, he’s been up and down this year. He’s going to be out with the concussion. It’s like why not why not do a whole another little mixup combination type of thing. I doubt we see Samuel this week though. I really do. There’s there’s no way. There’s no way we see Samuel. I I think it’s highly doubtful. I wouldn’t be opposed to it just because we’re going up against the Bengals. We saw what we did against them the first time on Thursday Night Football and how anemic we looked. It’s like why not throw Asante Samuel Jr. into the fold. I don’t know how great of a matchup he’ll be against Chase and T. Higgins. Maybe you actually do have to put him into the slot. Maybe that’s a good match up. Him and Yoshifuss. I’m just talking because of his height, right? Like T. Higgins, Jamar Chase. Although Jamar Chase lowkey isn’t as tall as you would with that. I think he’s only like 6’1, maybe 6’2. So maybe maybe you could pull off Samuel against him, but it’s like that’s that’s a lot to ask for. Samuel coming off the streets like that after this spinal fusion surgery, barely any practice. Hey, go cover Jamar Chase for uh the majority of a game or or even half the game if you want to split the snaps between Samuel and Porter against Chase. I still think that’s a tall task. Who knows? Uh either way, this is a great pickup. Great pickup. I think great two moves that the Steelers made for their defense, particularly in the secondary with us picking up Asante Samuel Jr. and bringing in Sebastian Castro to replace Juan Thornnehill. But let me know your thoughts down in the comments. Hope you guys enjoyed. Stay chilling. base.