Jordan Dangerfield has been with the Pittsburgh Steelers, on and off, in some capacity going all the way back to 2014. L.J. Fort can nearly say the same, his tenure with the organization—and bouncing back and fourth between employment and unemployment, or practice squad and active roster—can be traced back to 2015.
Yet never before during that time had either one of them ever been meaningfully asked to be a regular contributor to the team’s defensive efforts by design until this season. Heading into the home stretch of the year, both Fort and Dangerfield now have niche packages in which they see the field simply because the team believes they are the ones on the roster best equipped for it.