PHOENIX \u2013 In looking for clues to how the Pittsburgh Steelers plan deploy their defensive backs under a new coaching staff this season, consider how coach Mike McCarthy answered the first question he was asked about free-agent signing Jaquan Brisker.<\/p>\n
The first player he mentioned wasn\u2019t Brisker \u2013 it was Jalen Ramsey.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking about player flexibility,\u201d McCarthy said from the site of the NFL owners meetings last week. \u201cIt\u2019s really the first conversation I had with Jalen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramsey was the Steelers\u2019 marquee acquisition for the secondary last offseason. This year, Brisker was one of two high-profile free-agent signings of defensive backs.<\/p>\n
The other, Jamel Dean, is an established veteran NFL outside cornerback. Brisker is a safety. And with returning starters DeShon Elliott (a safety) and Joey Porter Jr. (a cornerback), along with another starting caliber veteran cornerback on the roster in Brandin Echols, where does that leave Ramsey?<\/p>\n
To hear McCarthy talk, it has him deployed as the proverbial Swiss Army Knife all over the defense.<\/p>\n
In conjunction with new defensive coordinator Patrick Graham, that\u2019s the way McCarthy likes it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you\u2019re a pass rusher or a dynamic secondary player, if you can line up the safety, nickel, dime, and jump out to corner in a matchup situation, there\u2019s tremendous value in that,\u201d McCarthy said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why with Brisker, his ability to play multiple positions (is appealing), and it\u2019s going to be the same way in the draft.\u201d<\/p>\n
With currently holding 12 selections in the Pittsburgh-based draft later this month, the Steelers likely aren\u2019t done adding defensive backs to a group that had bona fide starters in Porter, Dean, Elliott, Ramsey, Brisker and Echols along with proven veteran starting cornerback Asante Samuel Jr. and younger cornerbacks Cory Trice and Donte Kent and others.<\/p>\n
The fulcrum for how the division of labor plays out rests in the deployment of Ramsey, the three-time first-team AP NFL All Pro cornerback who joined the Steelers via a late-June trade last year.<\/p>\n
Ramsey began the season playing outside cornerback in the base defense and in the slot in the much-used nickel packages. But by Week 9, he was playing a position he hadn\u2019t played since when he was a star at Florida State \u2013 free safety.<\/p>\n
That move was made because Elliott suffered a season-ending injury and in part because veteran Juan Thornhill struggled at free safety. But an unspoken aspect of Ramsey\u2019s move was that at age 31 he isn\u2019t as adept at keeping up with the NFL\u2019s best receivers in one-on-one coverage anymore.<\/p>\n
Still, Ramsey in 2025 flashed some of the elite playmaking skills that will make him an almost certain future Hall of Famer. He\u2019s clearly still of great use to a modern NFL defense.<\/p>\n
Ramsey during his first season with the Steelers played 94.9% of the defensive snaps, trailing only linebacker Patrick Queen in time spent on the field. According to Pro Football Focus data, Ramsey played 450 snaps lined up at free safety, 359 as the slot corner, 184 as \u201cin the box\u201d strong safety or hybrid linebacker and 160 as a wide cornerback.<\/p>\n
\u201cPosition flexibility,\u201d McCarthy said, \u201cis something that I put a lot of value in.\u201d<\/p>\n
It should be noted that Ramsey played outside CB for just 13 snaps over the final nine games of the season (including playoffs). And if there was ever any question that his time lined up on the boundary against an opposing wide receiver was over, that the Steelers gave Dean a three, $36,75 million contract \u2013 and will soon give much more than that to Porter \u2013 to play outside CB signals even further that Ramsey will be utilized elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Where, exactly, that is will largely be up to Graham. With five months to go before the regular-season opener, much can still be determined. But as things stand now, it won\u2019t be surprising if Ramsey lines up at spots all over the defense based on a given down-and-distance situation, matchup with an opponent or even attrition\/availability of the Steelers\u2019 other defensive backs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve known Patrick for quite some time,\u201d said McCarthy, who hired him to the Green Bay Packers\u2019 defensive staff for the 2018 season. \u201cHe knows how I feel about the history of this defense. I mean, this system\u2019s been in place since (former Steelers and Packers defensive coordinator) Dom Capers, Bill Cowher put this system in 1992. Mike Tomlin has done a great job carrying it forward. So we\u2019re looking to build off of what\u2019s in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Featured Local Businesses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2013 In looking for clues to how the Pittsburgh Steelers plan deploy their defensive backs under a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,6,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-855848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-pittsburgh","11":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","12":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","13":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116354400257194672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855848","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=855848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}