There's an excellent reason it essentially escaped notice that Alex Highsmith, the Steelers' rookie outside linebacker, had an extraordinary game Sunday in Arlington, Texas: It's that he barely bleeping participated, somehow recording three tackles, his first NFL sack and a quarterback hurry ... in a dozen defensive snaps.
And halfway through his rookie season, his eight games have brought 15 tackles, zero misses, that sack, his first NFL interception the previous week in Baltimore, one pass completed against him on four targets, three quarterback pressures and two hurries despite just seven blitzes ... in 95 defensive snaps.
That snap count, for perspective, is akin to 1.2 full games for, say, Cam Heyward.
Seems like the Steelers' next decision should be a snap, huh?
If not, wait, here's that sack:
The initial bump on the Cowboys' left tackle, Cameron Irving, gets it going. Irving's footwork is suddenly spaghetti. Once that happens, Highsmith pounces on the upper body by shoving off Irving's inside shoulder and putting himself into position when Garrett Gilbert tucks and leans his way.
Here's a run stop, and I like this even more:
He's up against a tight end, Dalton Schultz, so he should win this matchup. But the reason he sheds the block so casually is that he owns the fundamentals: His pads are lower than his counterpart's. His hands get to the inside. His outside shoulder's free. As a result, he's free to disengage and go after Ezekiel Elliott, which he achieves with equal efficiency.
There's a saying in baseball: The bat plays. It means that anyone who can hit will always have a place in the lineup and, thus, the field. Because hitting supersedes all other skills for a position player.
This kid needs to play.
Forget that he's a third-round pick out of Charlotte, because that didn't matter to the Steelers, and it shouldn't matter to anyone. He's 6 feet 4, 243 pounds, he's got enough football savvy to require a second helmet, he's rabidly aggressive, he can cover sideline to sideline, and he finishes like ... well, a baseball closer, to revisit that parallel.
Where will he play?
That's obviously more vexing. But hardly inconceivable.
The easy, arguably lazy response is to dismiss it out of respect for T.J. Watt and Bud Dupree. Or to downplay Highsmith as the supporting cast for those two when they need a spell. And I get that. T.J. and Bud both have nonstop engines, but they don't log a full game of snaps, and that shouldn't be expected.
But ...
In Baltimore, when Keith Butler was hellbent on blitzing the Ravens, partly to control their running game, partly to contain Lamar Jackson in the pocket -- those aren't always at cross-purposes -- he utilized all three. T.J., Bud and Highsmith lined up ... well, all over creation. Anywhere that'd keep John Harbaugh's staff guessing. And it worked beautifully.
Individually, Highsmith logged a season-high 25 snaps, recorded two tackles, a pass defensed, Pro Football Focus' fourth-highest grade that week for any defender at any position on any team ... and this airborne pick of Jackson:
Listen to his explanation there that afternoon: “We had one of our packages that I was in, so I knew when that play started they were coming back to that because they ran the same play on the first half, and I didn’t drop deep enough, and they threw it over my head. So I learned from that play and just dropped deeper. The ball just fell right to my hands. We were talking about it at halftime with Coach, and with T.J. and Bud trying to make adjustments."
It did no such thing, of course. He made it happen, largely because an individual instinct led him to it.
Reminding here: This is a rookie. Who barely plays.
I dare say, without stretching my own coordinator credentials, that this needs to change.
If Butler could concoct a three-OLB scheme once, he could do it for an opponent other than Baltimore.
If the Steelers as a whole valued Highsmith's adaptability coming out of college -- where he'd already shifted from down lineman to outside linebacker with some duty on the inside -- they could pursue something along those lines, as well. Kevin Colbert spoke of Highsmith upon his drafting, "We don’t think this kid is anywhere near where he might be somewhere down the road,” and that could literally be the case for all we know.
Remember Chad Brown?
For the younger generation, he was part of the previous great Pittsburgh pass rush in the 1990s, drafted as an inside linebacker but shifted to the outside after a Greg Lloyd injury and, long story short, it brought him big bucks both here and, eventually, Seattle.
More relevant, it was what was best for the team at the time, and it worked.
AP
Alex Highsmith celebrates his sack Sunday in Arlington, Texas.
It might be a bad idea in this instance, so snap away at me or whatever. But I'd posit that there are no bad ideas that get Highsmith onto the field, and that's the broader stance I'm taking. This is the NFL's only undefeated team and, as such, it's a Super Bowl contender pretty much by default. This is the year to at least consider moves that benefit the team playing this year.
Look, there's a lot to like -- no, love -- about this defense. And that'll be all the truer if, as Tomlin hinted yesterday could happen, Mike Hilton and Tyson Alualu are both healthy for Sunday against the Bengals. Those guys are playmakers, and we've now seen how it looks -- 409 combined rushing yards for the Ravens and Cowboys, in case anyone's blocked that out -- when they aren't available to make those plays.
There's always room for one more of those.
