Mike Hilton might be gone, signing with the Bengals in the offseason as a free agent, but he's certainly not forgotten.
With the Steelers currently having an open battle at training camp to replace Hilton as the team's slot cornerback, his name has come up. A lot.
"I look at Mike’s game all the time," said second-year safety Antoine Brooks, who is one of the players vying to replace Hilton in the slot. "He taught me a lot when he was here. I appreciate him a big brother to me when he was here."
Hilton might only have been 5-foot-8 and 185 pounds -- soaking wet -- but he cast a large shadow.
Veteran Arthur Maulet was one of the players signed by the Steelers in the offseason to provide competition with Brooks, a sixth-round pick out of Maryland last year, for that spot. He's spent a lot of time watching film of what Hilton did the previous four years in that spot, as well.
"It’s something I study every day. That’s their defense, what they do," Maulet said. "He was effective at it last year and in the prior year, and he got paid for it. If I can emulate his game or better, I feel like I’ll be effective."
That means blitzing out of the slot. A lot.
Of Hilton's 508 defensive snaps last season -- he missed three games -- he spent 296 in coverage according to Pro Football Focus. He blitzed 70 times and was part of the run defense 142 times.
Being able to do that and hold up is a big part of what's asked of the nickel corner, and it's one reason Cam Sutton was unable to beat out Hilton in the slot the past couple of years, even though he's the better player in coverage. Hilton was an excellent blitzer, recording 9.5 sacks in his four years with the Steelers, and also good in run defense.
That's one of the reasons the Steelers are primarily seeing if Brooks or Maulet can win the job on the inside.
"They want Cam outside," Maulet said. "Either me or Antoine, we have to step up and help this team get better."
The Steelers have moved Sutton inside as the dime linebacker this week when they started working on that grouping, but Maulet's statement seems to be correct. They want Sutton outside in the nickel.
Maulet primarily moved to the slot last season for the Jets. In 2020, he played 247 snaps in the slot, 109 at free safety and only 15 on the outside. That came a year after the Jets played him 288 snaps on the outside and only 20 in the slot. And he was much more effective as the slot cornerback, allowing 21 completions on 32 pass attempts in his coverage for 221 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. He also blitzed seven times out of the slot.
Brooks played 20 snaps in the slot for the Steelers last season when Hilton was injured, allowing one reception on two pass attempts for five yards.
But he's no stranger to the slot, having lined up there in his first three seasons at Maryland and catching the eye of Mike Tomlin, whose son, Dino, plays there, as well.
"I played a lot of nickel early," said Brooks, who said he now weighs between 200 and 205 pounds, down from 220 when he was drafted, to prepare for this move. Basically, my senior year, we started moving me around to safety and stuff like that. (Tomlin) saw me blitz. He saw me cover. He saw me go into zone, fire zone. He saw me doing everything his defense is doing. That’s probably why he was happy I’m here."
We'll see about that.
But Brooks did have 3.5 sacks and 3 interceptions combined as a sophomore and junior when he was primarily Maryland's nickel corner.
Both Maulet and Brooks know they have some big shoes to fill, "clown shoes" in terms of size according to Brooks. After all, the Bengals gave Hilton a 4-year, $24-million contract in the offseason.
But they also both have a pretty good idea of what it's going to take to do so. Now, it will just come down to the execution.
"You’ve got to just really watch film. Mike was a big film watcher," Brooks said of becoming as good at blitzing as Hilton. "He told me a little bit more about that, watching the pre-snap quarterback, motions. Honestly, (Tomlin) told me a couple of more I’ve got to look at and watch out for. I’m trying to time it up right."
If neither can get that timing right, perhaps the Steelers will go to Sutton in the slot and change how they run their defense, a bit. They blitzed Sutton just 12 times last season on the 276 snaps he took in the slot a year ago.
But they obviously would like to continue to do what worked so well with Hilton -- if they have a player capable of doing it.
"You have to be tough as nails," Maulet said of playing in the slot for the Steelers. "I’m not going to shy away from contact at all. You’ve got to be able to blitz. You’ve got to be able to tackle. You’ve got to be an intelligent defensive back to play that spot. I’m owning up to that."
MORE STEELERS
• I confirmed this week that it will be Craig Wolfley working as the color analyst this season for Steelers games, replacing his good friend and former teammate, Tunch Ilkin, who was forced to retire to deal with his ALS. That only seems fitting that Wolfley, who has essentially been with Ilkin since the two were drafted by the Steelers back-to-back in 1980, be the man to replace his best friend. Bill Hillgrove will continue to serve as the play-by-play man. -- Lolley
• The Steelers scouts are in town for the start of training camp as they are for the first couple of weeks every year. But, unlike last year, when they essentially were just on hand to watch Steelers practices because the NFL had shut down all travel to college campuses, this year, things are a little more back to normal. "At most colleges, we had to sit in the stands. We couldn’t get on the field for pre-game. We couldn’t get in the press boxes for a lot of places," Kevin Colbert said when I asked him about that this week. "Right now, the league has lifted our restrictions, but we’re still subject to the school’s restrictions. Scouts are in town right now. We’re putting our schedules together. We’re learning about, as the colleges report back, their restrictions and what we need to abide by. We’ll adjust appropriately. We do anticipate being able to get on campus for practices, interactions on whatever basis they determine." That will be welcome news to NFL teams across the league, especially since next year's draft class looks to be especially deep because so many college players were granted an additional year of eligibility because of the pandemic. -- Lolley
PENGUINS
• Most NHL teams put an emphasis on drafting and developing players, in part because homegrown talent tends to be a bit less expensive than guys who have to be acquired through free agency. But because the Penguins have been in "win-now" mode for well over a decade, they've had relatively few drafts choices, especially in the early rounds, because those picks routinely were traded in return for an immediate upgrade to the major-league roster. And so it is that only nine players who currently project onto the Penguins' roster for the regular-season opener Oct. 12 in Tampa entered pro hockey as a Penguins draft choice. They are Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Kasperi Kapanen, Teddy Blueger, Tristan Jarry and Sam Lafferty. That number could be bumped up a bit in a few months if Samuel Poulin and/or Nathan Legare, both claimed in the 2019 draft, are able to claim a spot on the major-league roster. -- Dave Molinari
• Peter Taglianetti had spent all or part of seven seasons in the NHL by the time the Penguins acquired him, along with Larry Murphy, from Minnesota in December, 1990, so he had a pretty good sense of what things were like around the league in those days. Or so he thought, anyway, until he discovered what it really was like in the Patrick Division, where his new team was based. "Back in those days, all the divisions were different," Taglianetti said. "The Adams Division was just dump and bang around. The Smythe Division was more wide-open, skating. The Norris Division was basically just a bloodbath. The Patrick Division was all of those things, just wrapped into one. When you played the Capitals, it was a very intense game. You played the Islanders, the Rangers, the Flyers, the Devils. Every night was the same exact intensity. You had hitting, you had fighting, you had goal-scoring. You had a whole bunch of everything. You didn't really know it, as a new guy coming in, how tough those rivalries are." -- Molinari
• During the nearly six months since he succeeded Jim Rutherford as GM, Ron Hextall has established his credentials in this market as an articulate, thoughtful and, most often, fairly insightful interview subject. He has not, however, maintained a particularly high public profile. Pandemic-related restrictions surely contributed to that, and Hextall certainly has had no shortage of other duties that require his attention. Still, the Penguins could do much worse than to have him complement president of hockey operations Brian Burke and, to a lesser degree, team president/CEO David Morehouse as the public face of the front office as Hextall continues to settle into the job. — Molinari
PIRATES
• This might not come as much of a surprise, but per an industry source, the Phillies were “pissed” their deal for Tyler Anderson fell through at the last minute Tuesday due to a medical report with one of their prospects. The two sides tried to rework the deal, but after that failed, the Mariners swooped in and completed another deal for the lefty. Both teams needed starting pitcher depth, and Anderson is definitely that. Derek Shelton was very complimentary of the left-hander upon his departure. “He’s very direct,” he said. “He’s very smart. He’s very prepared. He’s probably one of the most prepared guys I’ve ever been around… I really appreciated that about him.” Hey, the Pirates will need starting pitcher depth again this offseason. Maybe they’ll decide to go around one more time. -- Alex Stumpf at PNC Park
• So ignoring the medical hang up, which prospect package for Anderson was better, that of the the Phillies or the Mariners? Both were for a right-handed pitcher (Christian Hernandez for the Phillies, Joaquin Tejada from the Mariners) and a catcher (Abrahan Gutierrez for the Phillies, Carter Bins from the Mariners). Tejada is 18 and just started playing competitive games in the Dominican. The reviews I got on Hernandez weren’t great, but he certainly is a safer prospect. And while I got a good review on Gutierrez, Bins’ trajectory is up right now, especially as a hitter. All four are low- to mid-level prospects, so it looks like a matter of preference. One mid-level guy with a Dominican lottery ticket, or two guys with slightly lower up-side but definitely a higher floor. Oh, and a bonus point for Bins is that he is not Rule 5 eligible this winter, meaning he will be exempt from what is shaping up to be a massive roster crunch. -- Stumpf
• Of the Pirates’ top four draft picks, outfielder Lonnie White Jr. always appeared to be the most questionable to sign because of his commitment to Penn State. (Which isn’t too surprising. After all, Henry Davis and Bubba Chandler had handshake agreements before they were picked.) His decision took the longest, but from what I was told, it really was a case of baseball being the first, true sports love that drove the choice. After the draft, I was given a prediction Chandler would probably sign for about $2 million over-slot and Davis for about $6.5 million total. Those two predictions were spot on. The same person predicted it would take about a $1 million over-slot deal to get White. His bonus was for $1.5 million, about $450,000 over-slot. Ben Cherington said he wanted to see how important baseball was to the two-sport athletes the Pirates drafted. Well, there’s a dollar figure to show it. -- Stumpf