Tim Benz: Ready or not, Steelers’ revamped secondary will get its true reveal in Week 1

Ready or not, here it comes.

The starters in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ secondary didn’t have much of a chance to play together in August. Just a few snaps against Carolina early in the preseason finale last week, and that was it.

Their time as a collective in training camp was occasionally interrupted by minor injuries as well, given missed practices for Joey Porter Jr. early at Saint Vincent College and Jalen Ramsey later on.

But the Steelers can’t do anything about that now. The regular season opener is Sept. 7 against the Jets. To whatever degree the defensive backs know — or don’t know — about playing together, they are going to have to live with it by that point.

“I feel like it’s coming together,” cornerback Porter Jr. said prior to the game in Charlotte. “It takes time. We all think highly of ourselves. We all think we can play. It’s just reps. You’ve just got to get those reps in and keep communicating as one.”

Five practices remain for the Steelers before they kick off the 2025 campaign at MetLife Stadium. Perhaps more than any other unit on the field, the secondary probably needs to make the most of them.

For the sake of cohesion, communication and timing. In other words, all the things that seemed to be OK with that unit at the start of last year seemed to get worse along with everything else about the team at the end of 2024.

To this point, though, head coach Mike Tomlin seems to think that aspect of the secondary has come along well despite all the changes in the unit from last year.

“It feels really good. That’s why it was important to get them in the stadium last week,” Tomlin said. “I feel really good about the process, about the progress. We have some new people, not new to the National Football League, but new to us. So getting on the same page is a major component.”

Gone are Minkah Fitzpatrick, Damontae Kazee, Donte Jackson and Cameron Sutton. Beanie Bishop’s status seems up in the air.

Additions to the room with holdovers such as Porter and DeShon Elliott include Darius Slay, Ramsey, Chuck Clark, Juan Thornhill and Brandin Echols.

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With limited game reps, all those new parts mixing around could be confusing. Although Slay insists the defensive backs have kept up with the advanced learning curve.

“Just seeing us all out there in Carolina, I was really observant,” Slay said. “It was exciting. I was loving it. I didn’t want to come out after (just one) series.”

Ramsey is the one who’ll be moving around the most — playing outside, nickel and maybe even some safety. He claims to like the versatile role, but admits there’s no margin for errors despite the increased chances to commit some, given all the different positions he might be playing.

“You have to know different roles, know different alignments, assignments and different techniques,” Ramsey said last week. “A couple of those roles, I have to communicate frequently, whereas just playing outside, I don’t really have to communicate as much. I can just kind of lock in on one specific thing. That’s what makes it challenging. But it’s fun.”

To this point, it sounds like defensive coordinator Teryl Austin believes the Steelers are getting a player who is living up to his billing in Ramsey, and one who can handle bouncing around all over the back third of the defense, even if he hasn’t had many game snaps to try it yet.

“First and foremost, he’s a really good cornerback. What you also knew was that he had the ability to play in nickel and play inside, because he’s a big guy, smart,” Austin said during training camp. “Whatever their position label may be, that really doesn’t bother me. What I’ve got to do as a coach is find out, ‘Can we do with these guys what they do best and help us win games?’ We’ll just do whatever that is. We’ll just move it around. It might look a little different at times, but we are hoping that the results are good for us.”

It doesn’t matter at all if the secondary looks different to us. It just needs to look predictable to the guys who are playing within it.

Opposing offenses were doing plenty to keep the Steelers guessing the last five weeks of 2024. Far too often, they guessed incorrectly.

More depth and talent in that unit this year should mitigate that problem in 2025. Hopefully, a better understanding of what the players are supposed to be doing will as well.

Watch: Tim Benz and Mike DeCourcy wrap up the preseason in this week’s Mike’s Beer Bar “Friday Football” show.