Mike Tomlin has been preaching for many years about how the game is increasingly becoming about sub-packages and specialized roles. It took a couple of years for his practice to catch up with his preaching, but we have seen more niche roles from time to time in recent seasons.
This has been a topic recently with the drafting of safety Antoine Brooks in the sixth round, whom general manager Kevin Colbert called half a linebacker and half a safety. And the Steelers have clearly looked for a ‘dimebacker’ type of player before.
Colbert was recently on The X talking with the truly exceptional and, dare I say, downright legendary Mark Madden in an expansive interview earlier this week, and one of the topics that his host brought up was whether or not they viewed third-year starting strong safety Terrell Edmunds as possibly that type of hybrid player.