Forget about an acclimation period. The Steelers weren't messing around with new linebacker Joe Schobert Sunday. They threw him right into their starting defense next to Devin Bush -- and at times without Bush on the field.
With just over three weeks before the start of the season, the Steelers just don't have the time to waste getting Schobert up to speed before they travel to Buffalo Sept. 12 to take on the Bills.
"We’re just trying to teach as much as we can, and the best way to teach is to get him into competitive situations," Mike Tomlin said after his team completed its Sunday on-field work here at Heinz Field.
Schobert was acquired from the Jaguars for a sixth-round draft pick in 2022 in a deal that was completed Saturday.
Jacksonville's general manager, Trent Baalke, told Schobert of the deal after a team meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday night as the Steelers were readying to take the field for their second preseason game in Philadelphia.
The deal wasn't completed immediately because of some additional negotiated that needed to be done -- namely getting the Jaguars to pick up half of Schobert's $7.3 million base salary. Jacksonville agreed to do that, while the Steelers then reworked the rest of Schobert's guaranteed salary into signing bonus, lowering his base salary they are paying to just over $1 million and lowering his cap hit to just under $2 million.
"It came out of the blue from my perspective," Schobert said of the trade. "There were no warning signs or any predetermined stuff. I was talking to the defensive coaches right after I talked to the general manager and they were pretty shocked about it, so I think it was just kind of something that came out of the blue and just happened."
So, there was Schobert, just three days later, out there next to Bush in the first-team nickel defense in Seven Shots to open practice and then when the team went to other competitive 11-on-11 drills. He was even out there as the only linebacker in the dime defense, taking the place of Bush.
Don't read too much into that, however. The Steelers just want him to learn the spots and learn them quickly.
"They threw me out on the field playing with the ones today, which is good because all those guys know about the communication; they can help me if I’ve got questions out on the field pre-snap," said Schobert, who said he spent a good portion of the past 24 to 48 hours with Keith Butler and inside linebackers coach Jerry Olsavsky. "It’s just jumping with both feet right in. Lot of meetings yesterday and today to get the basic installs written down and putting them in my memory bank. Just gotta get out here and start getting reps at it."
Bush is coming back from a season-ending knee injury suffered in Week 6 of last season against the Browns. Prior to that, he was on the field for every defensive snap the Steelers had.
Schobert is accustomed to a similar workload. In 2017, he was on the field for 100 percent of the defensive snaps for the Browns, earning a Pro Bowl berth after recording a league-best 144 tackles to go along with three sacks and an interception. The past two seasons, one in Cleveland and last year with the Jaguars -- who signed him to a five-year, $53.5-million free agent deal -- he played 99 percent of the team's defensive snaps, logging more than 1,000 snaps each year.
The Steelers obviously envision using both Schobert and Bush together not only in their base 3-4 defense, but in the nickel, as well. Last season, the Steelers played their base 3-4 31.3 percent of the time, while they were in nickel 39.7 percent and dime 17.3 percent. They were one of the teams that played the highest percentage of base and dime defense in the NFL and had one of the lowest percentages of nickel.
The league averages for base defense was 24 percent, while the league averages for nickel and dime were 59.9 and 13.9 percent, respectively.
But without Bush for much of the season, the Steelers didn't have a true cover linebacker, making do with Robert Spillane, Ulysees Gilbert, Marcus Allen -- a converted safety -- and finally Avery Williamson, whom they traded for at midseason. None were ideal. Or as good in coverage as Bush or Schobert.
Now, Spillane, who had been slated to start next to Bush, will go back to the bench, while Gilbert and Allen won't even be guaranteed roster spots.
Tomlin wasn't ready to speculate how Schobert's presence will permit the Steelers to play more nickel this season. But he is aware of Schobert's ability to make big plays. As a member of the Browns and then the Jaguars, Schobert has played against the Steelers eight times in his five-year career. He has recorded 64 tackles, a sack and two interceptions, both of them coming in the well-documented 21-7 win by the Browns in Cleveland Nov. 14, 2019.
Yeah, the Mason Rudolph-Myles Garrett game.
While admitting he's had some good games against the Steelers -- despite being part of the winning team just once -- Schobert has already gained an admiration for the franchise
"I think it’s a first-class organization," he said. "You can see that, obviously, through meetings, talking to coaches. Everybody’s been here a long time and people know what the standard is. It’s understood in meetings and practice how to take care of your body from the top down. It’s been nothing but a pleasant surprise for me, coming here."
It's a little different in terms of stability than that to which he is accustomed. This will be his sixth new defensive scheme that he will be tasked with learning in six NFL seasons.
"I’ve done a lot of similar things. There’s some new stuff, but mostly the biggest difference is the jargon, the language of the defense, just getting that on par with everybody else and being able to communicate when I’m on the field," Schobert said.
How quickly can that happen?
"Hopefully, by Saturday, the game, I’ll be able to at least run the basic stuff pretty confidently," Schobert said. "And then as the games go on, the season progresses, it’ll just get more comfortable. It’s just going to take reps. I don’t know how many reps I’ll get before it’ll feel great, before I’ll be 100 percent comfortable making all the calls, communicating with everybody on defense, but I think it’ll be a pretty easy, pretty fluid process, especially with all the veterans that are on the defense already."
And then it will be time to take care of his off-field stuff.
Schobert had signed a five-year, $53.75 million contract with the Jaguars just last year. But he obviously didn't fit into the plans of the new GM and new head coach in Urban Meyer.
But he and his wife, Megan, had purchased a home in Jacksonville. They expected to be there for a while.
"I wasn’t sad, but it was kind of stressful, especially during the middle of training camp because I’ve got a wife and kids, a dog, house down in Jacksonville," Schobert said. "I’m gonna have to figure out the logistics of moving them up. But I wouldn’t say I was sad, no. Just a little stressful, a little shock to the system."
