Tim Benz: Steelers should've been ready for long suspension of Cam Sutton. If they weren't, they shouldn't have signed him

If the Steelers are surprised about Cameron Sutton’s eight-game suspension, they shouldn’t be. And if the club is suddenly worried about what this news may do to the defense, then maybe the front office should’ve addressed slot-corner in a different way.

The NFL took that action against the 29-year-old defensive back on Monday because of his involvement in an alleged domestic violence incident on March 7 in Florida. That confrontation led to criminal charges being filed.

Sutton eluded police for several weeks before turning himself in on March 31 and was eventually released on his own recognizance. Prosecutors reduced the charge to misdemeanor battery.

On April 8, Sutton entered a pretrial diversion program to resolve the case, and he had to undergo a mental health evaluation as a condition of the program. Having been released by the Detroit Lions after the charges became public, the Steelers eventually brought Sutton back to Pittsburgh in June. He played here from 2017-22 before leaving for the Lions in free agency.

Sutton is not appealing the eight-week suspension. Some are surprised at that decision, seeing as how the NFL’s standard punishment for such violations of the NFL’s personal conduct policy is six weeks.

If Sutton was already penciled in as the team’s starting slot corner, then head coach Mike Tomlin had to know that pencil was likely going to be unable to hit paper for at least the first month or so of the season. Coordinator Teryl Austin’s defense was always going to operate as if Week 1 was going to come and Sutton was going to be unavailable.

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In other words, whatever that plan was to be to get by is just going to have to be extended longer. What were the Steelers expecting to do? Give up 28 points a game without Sutton the first four to six weeks of the season, but only 14 for the last 11?

This was always likely going to happen to some length or another. Whoever plan A was to start the year before Sutton was to come along is just going to have to stretch out their performance a little longer.

That may mean Minkah Fitzpatrick having to play in the slot with Damontae Kazee and Dashon Elliott hanging back at safety in nickel looks. That may mean Donte Jackson having to bump inside if Cory Trice or Darius Rush is ready to play outside in subpackage looks. It may mean bringing back Patrick Peterson or Chandon Sullivan. It may mean rookie project pick Ryan Watts making the team or relying on down-the-roster guys such as Beanie Bishop, Josiah Scott, Grayland Arnold or Anthony Averett.

Whoever it was going to be in Week 1 is still going to have been relied on in Week 8 instead of only Week 6. Period.

After all, if you go back and look at Austin’s quotes from minicamp, it sure sounds like the Steelers were expecting just such a scenario at nickel corner.

“We’re not quite sure. We’re going to work around that, and we’re going to audition,” Austin said in June. “That’s been some area that we’ve had some issues trying to fill. So, we’re looking forward to it. I think we’ve got some good young candidates in there. We got a veteran candidate in Josiah, and we’ve got a young candidate in Beanie. We have some other guys that we know can play in there. So, we’re going to let that thing shake out at camp, but I think it’s going to be a heck of a competition.”

That’s when a reporter chimed in, “Isn’t Cam Sutton the final piece there?”

Austin replied, “Could be, absolutely. We know that Cam, as a football player, he’s really versatile. He can do a lot of things for us. I think obviously he would be part of that mix as well.”

The unspoken word there was “part of that mix… eventually.”

Austin clearly answered that question from the standpoint of who the slot corner was going to be on opening day. While no one on the Steelers during spring practices had a clear sense of how long Sutton’s suspension was going to be, I certainly didn’t hear anyone at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex putting the over/under on it at “under one game.”

Maybe the NFL came down harder on Sutton because he refused to turn himself in for so long. Maybe he had to admit to some level of guilt as a way to enter the pretrial diversionary program. Maybe the league just got a look at the affidavit, which included allegations of biting, choking and slamming a woman into a wall, and thought there was enough evidence to merit those charges, and felt a stiffer suspension was necessary.

Or maybe it was a little bit of everything.

Regardless, if any team should be aware of how random the spinning “Wheel of NFL Justice” can be, it’s the Steelers. Whether it’s been on the field (Kazee, James Harrison) or off the field discipline (Ben Roethlisberger, Martavis Bryant) that their players have faced over the years — or their opponents in places such as Cleveland (Deshaun Watson), New England (DeflateGate, SpyGate) and Baltimore (Ray Rice) — the Steelers should know that predicting how the commissioner’s office is going to handle any potential suspension is about as difficult as picking all 17 games of a team’s NFL schedule the day it is released in May.

When the organization signed Sutton, a logical guess would’ve been a suspension of six weeks. I suppose they could’ve crossed their fingers for four. But anything more than six was always a possibility given the reasons we just pointed out.

So let’s avoid turning this situation into some unforeseen albatross the Steelers are now suddenly having to overcome. But if things play out that way, then Tomlin, Austin and general manager Omar Khan have no one to blame but themselves.