Tyler Matakevich isn't Ryan Shazier. Neither is Jon Bostic.
But both know they don't have to be.
As we've heard numerous times throughout this offseason, including emphatically from Vince Williams, finding one guy to replace Shazier, quite frankly, isn't possible. Linebackers who are 230 pounds and run 4.4-second 40-yard dashes just don't come along all that often.
But in Matakevich and Bostic, the Steelers feel they have enough to make the defense work much better than it did down the stretch last season when both Shazier and Matakevich were injured in the same game Dec. 4 at Cincinnati.
"You take advantage of what you’ve got when you’ve got 50 (Shazier) out there," Matakevich told me recently. "He makes everything better. You can’t replace a guy like that, so you’ve got to capitalize in other areas. You’ve got to communicate. If you’ve got all 11 guys on the same page, it doesn’t matter what defense is out there. Communication is key."
That was something that was lacking at times last season. And it's been a point of emphasis for the Steelers. One of the things the team likes about Matakevich is his above-the-neck play. And the Steelers praised Bostic for being an outstanding communicator when they signed him earlier this year.
Even safeties Morgan Burnett and first-round pick Terrell Edmunds were praised as players who were outstanding in their communication skills.
Why is that important?
"It’s huge," Matakevich told me. "People might not appreciate it, but we sure damn well do. I think that’s the biggest thing. As long as we can get all 11 guys on the same page, we’ll be fine."
That might be a leap of faith for many Steelers fans. They saw what this defense looked like at times, even with Shazier on the field, when it allowed more than 200 yards rushing in losses to both Chicago and Jacksonville. But in the other nine games Shazier started and finished, the Steelers allowed 67 yards rushing per game.
Trouble is, you don't get to throw out your two worst games. And, oh, by the way, the Steelers allowed 134 yards rushing per game after Shazier's injury.
Matakevich wasn't available to play defensively in those games because of a shoulder that constantly came out of the socket just playing special teams. "It would come out. They would put it back in," he told me. "I’d go out again and they’d put it back in. By the end, I knew how to put it back in."
Mel Gibson "Lethal Weapon" style.
Bostic was added as a free agent after making 97 tackles in 14 games for Indianapolis last season, the most he's played since he appeared in 13 games for Chicago in 2014.
Since that 2014 season, he's bounced around to four different teams, getting traded twice in a league in which most players are never dealt once. His two-year deal with the Steelers pays him $4 million, or less than half what the Steelers are paying Shazier this season.
But he's fine with that. A 2013 second-round draft pick of the Bears, the 27-year-old is looking for a place to call home.
"Year after year, you see them competing in the playoffs, trying to get deeper and deeper. Trying to win a Super Bowl," Bostic told me of his interest in signing with the Steelers. "That’s one thing that really attracted me. The other thing was a chance to come in and make myself stable. Early in my career, I got hurt. Last year, I got back on my feet. Now, I’m healthy. I’m ready to show people what I can do.
"For me, it’s about taking it day by day. I want to come in and prove myself."
The proof will be in their play. The Steelers were interested in acquiring a young inside linebacker in the first round of the draft. But when that didn't happen, the team didn't make a move to acquire another veteran inside linebacker despite players such as former Steelers star Lawrence Timmons and veteran Novorro Bowman still being available.
The Steelers are showing faith in Matakevich and Bostic.
"That’s all I can ask for," Matakevich said of the opportunity to work with the starting defense throughout the offseason workouts. "All you can ever ask for is a chance. What you do with it is up to you. That’s why I’m so blessed with this organization. It’s one of a kind. The guys they’ve got in here, they believe in them. There’s no hiding that. They tell you how it is. You have to appreciate that."
Whether Matakevich can hold off Bostic at training camp remains to be seen.
Matakevich is a throwback inside linebacker. Had he come along 20 years earlier, he'd have been a great fit for the Steelers' defense and would have been drafted earlier than in the seventh round where the Steelers got him in 2016. But today's NFL is all about coverage. And that's where Bostic has an advantage.
"I grade myself pretty well," Bostic told me of his coverage skills. "That’s something I did a lot of in college. In the NFL, I played a lot of Tampa-2 early on, a lot of zone. It wasn’t until last year when I was asked to play more man. That’s something I expect to do more here. That’s something, when we sat down in the offseason with the Steelers, that was something they said they needed somebody to do and I was the perfect guy for."
We'll see about that starting July 25. But this is one training camp battle that will be critical to the team's success in 2018.
• Now that Phil Mickelson has apologized for hitting a moving golf ball on the green in a moment of anger, can we all just move on? Seriously.
Spare me the integrity of the game stuff. Spare me showing kids the wrong thing to do. It was a spontaneous incident and he momentarily lost his cool. It's not like he threw his putter into the water and began screaming curse words on live TV.
• Or attacked a water cooler.
• Neal Huntington has a tough job. He has to operate under the financial constraints placed upon him by Pirates' ownership. That's not easy and you could argue that he's set up to fail.
But this is what he signed up for.
Note to Neal: You don't help your cause when you rip the fans for not showing up to support what has become a sub-par baseball team as he did earlier this week. It's just not a good look.
• The problem the Pirates have right now is that they are trying to compete. Yes, they are actually trying.
You might not think so, but they didn't dump everyone of value as some other teams around the league did in an attempt to gain high draft picks and rebuild.
The worst thing you can do in sports is be mediocre. That's tougher to sell than a complete tank job that's going on in some other cities. At least when you tank, there's some hope of getting better in the future.
• One of the great things about sports are they aren't scripted. So when Mickelson momentarily loses his cool on the golf course, we all know how he's feeling.
Who hasn't been frustrated at one time or another while playing a sport?
I know. People who have never played a sport.
• Yes, golf is a sport. I've heard people try to make the argument that it is not. If that were the case, anyone could pick up a club and shoot a 72.
And we all know that doesn't happen.
• My four picks for induction into the Steelers Hall of Honor this year would be Bill Nunn, Larry Brown, Jon Kolb and Dwight White. I could be convinced of some other people, such as Ray Mansfield, Rocky Bleier or Elbie Nickel, as well.
Point is, there are a lot of great players who should be there. That's why I would wait on some of the more recent players.