Young cornerbacks developing nicely for Pittsburgh Steelers
Steelers have the makings of a deep secondary for years to come
Tyreek Hill ran a 4.29 40 at his Pro Day and he looked all of that as the Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver sprinted past Pittsburgh Steelers rookie cornerback Artie Burns in the fourth quarter of Sunday night's game.
But Burns surprisingly caught up, and at the last nanosecond reached out an arm to deflect the deep pass away from Hill's hands.
Not that the play mattered in the outcome of a 43-14 Steelers win, but it mattered to the coaching staff and personnel department of the Steelers, who have to be pleased with the development of Burns and the rest of their young secondary.
Of course, the Steelers still rank 30th in the NFL in pass defense. That's where they finished last season, and that's why they spent their first- and second-round draft picks on defensive backs.
Burns and second-round safety/cornerback hybrid Sean Davis are 6-foot cover guys with outstanding speed. And then they threw Justin Gilbert into the room as a reclamation project right before the start of the season and – voila – a group of sub 5-10 mutts had turned into tall run-and-cover specimens for DBs coach Carnell Lake to mold in his own image.
"We do have a lot of young talent," said starting left cornerback Ross Cockrell. "If you just go down the line from Gilbert, obviously you know he was a top-10 pick; Artie was a first-round pick; Sean Davis was an early-round pick, very talented, plays a lot of positions for us. You've got guys like Senquez (Golson), who was an early-round pick. He's still coming back. We've got a lot of young talent, but the thing that's most impressive about them is they just have that hunger, they have that fire. They want to learn, they want to grow, they want to get better each and every week, each and every practice. It's a good thing to see."
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