When Dugger joined SNR Drive on the Steelers Audio Network on Friday,<\/a> he was asked about the guidance Peppers has provided.<\/p>\n\u201cYeah, he\u2019s been like a personal translator, simplifying everything for me,\u201d Dugger said.<\/p>\n
While Dugger and Peppers haven\u2019t been on the field yet as Steelers due to a quadricep injury that forced Peppers to miss the last two games, the two former Patriots safeties should see the field this Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. Dugger and Peppers spent three full seasons together in New England before each fell out of favor under new head coach Mike Vrabel and found their way to Pittsburgh this season.<\/p>\n
Peppers is the more veteran of the two, entering the league in 2017 as a first-round pick of the Cleveland Browns. The Michigan product was dealt to the New York Giants as part of the Odell Beckham trade and spent three seasons with New York before signing as a free agent with New England in 2022. Before the 2024 season, the Patriots signed the veteran safety to a three-year, $24 million extension, but he was released just one year later. After DeShon Elliott suffered an injury in the Steelers\u2019 Week 1 victory over the New York Jets, Peppers signed a one-year contract with the Steelers. His veteran leadership and experience, along with his ability to play on special teams, made him a great fit for a Steelers team in need of safety depth.<\/p>\n
As fate would have it, he was soon joined in Pittsburgh by Dugger, whom the Steelers executed a late-round pick swap with the Patriots to acquire. Dugger was a second-round pick of New England in 2020 out of Division II Lenoir-Rhyne and has fit seamlessly into the run-stopping strong safety role.<\/p>\n
Along with his prior relationship with Jabrill Peppers, which helped him get up to speed in a new system, Dugger also mentioned that the help other veterans like Jalen Ramsey, Cam Heyward, and Darius Slay provided him on the field in his first game was key to his comfort and ability to execute.<\/p>\n
Now that Dugger has a few games under his belt in Pittsburgh, he is looking forward to helping the Steelers bounce back this week against the Cincinnati Bengals\u2019 high-powered offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say making them one-dimensional is definitely attached to the goal. Stopping the run and then just executing our defenses. Definitely making them one-dimensional will make things easier,\u201d Dugger of the Steelers\u2019 plan this week.<\/p>\n
Dugger will be pivotal in the Steelers\u2019 goal of stopping Chase Brown and the Bengals\u2019 running attack. If they can do so, opposing offenses will become one-dimensional, and the Steelers can get back to winning football games by forcing turnovers. Whatever role Kyle Dugger plays in the Steelers defense\u2019s success, credit can also be given to Jabrill Peppers for taking his current and former teammate under his wing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Kyle Dugger was traded from the New England Patriots to the Pittsburgh Steelers, he was forced to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,7899,7882,6,520,57,2360,83453,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-529314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jabrill-peppers","10":"tag-kyle-dugger","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","14":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","15":"tag-snr-drive","16":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115558743058988752","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}