Steelers' Shaky Safety Situation Has Similar Answer

The Pittsburgh Steelers are in a very rough spot heading into their Week 1 contest against the Atlanta Falcons. Their safety room is very weak, as only three players at that position are currently on the 53-man roster. DeShon Elliott was placed on Injured Reserve (IR) with soreness related to his 2025 injury. While Jaquan Brisker is officially off the initial injury report, he has been dealing with a nagging issue that may limit him early on. That is severely eating into the depth of the team before the season kicks off. 

The Steelers may be forced to give significant playing time to seventh-round rookie Robert Spears-Jennings. He did play well in training camp and preseason, but that's still not an ideal situation for a young player who was not seen as NFL ready when he came out of college. We will know very quickly if he truly is ready to be a key piece already or not.

There is a solution to this issue, and it's one that the Steelers used before. Insider Ray Fittipaldo explained what will most likely happen during his weekly Q&A chat.

"In the base defense, yes, Ramsey will drop back to safety most of the time. When they go to sub-packages, Ramsey will play in the slot for the most part. I know Patrick Graham has some big ideas on taking advantage of his versatility. He could line up in a lot of places in the secondary once the Steelers are completely healthy back there."

The Steelers have spoken a lot about having Jalen Ramsey play as a "positionless" player, but there are some issues with that. For starters, he also missed a lot of time in July and August due to injury, so it will take time for the whole defense to get used to him. The other problem is the aforementioned lack of depth at safety, which would force him to play there more often. 

Fittipaldo expects Ramsey to only play safety in base defense, which was the Steelers' plan in the first half of the 2025 season. It still won't be surprising to see him get some reps at safety while the defense is in nickel or dime packages though, especially with all the depth Pittsburgh has at cornerback. With how injury-prone defensive backs are, these plans may go nowhere close to how the coaches envisioned it. 

In the middle of the 2025 season, most of Pittsburgh's safety core got injured around the same time. It had two healthy safeties entering its Week 9 contest, and one of them was Kyle Dugger, who was just acquired via trade and had barely practiced with the team. Ramsey was forced to switch from versatile defensive back to full-time free safety. He did well in that game and kept the role for the rest of the season.

Steelers Should Expect Plans To Go Awry Again

Odds are that will end up being the case again in 2026. Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham may love Ramsey's versatility, but he won't be able to use it all to his advantage if safeties keep going down as the Steelers expect. The veteran could still help with communication by learning all the different positions on defense and what their assignments are, but that will likely be the extent of what he does outside of defensive back.

As mentioned before, the Steelers have great cornerback depth, even in the slot. Brandin Echols has played well for the most part, and the coaches seem interested in having Asante Samuel Jr. get some reps there just to get him on the field more often. Pittsburgh's cornerback room should be perfectly fine if Ramsey doesn't play there, but the same can't be said about safety.