While Pittsburgh Steelers rookie defensive lineman Keeanu Benton saw more than a couple dozen snaps in his NFL debut a week ago, it cannot be ignored that the bulk of that work came after Cameron Heyward had already gone out of the game due to a groin injury.
In other words, it wasn’t in the cards for him to play so much. That came about by necessity. But it’s going to continue to be necessary moving forward, because Heyward is expected to miss about two months or so.
Benton told reporters that he “expected some playing time” in the opener, but “I didn’t know it was going to be this significant this soon”, according to Mike DeFabo writing this past week for The Athletic in preparation for Monday’s game.