LATROBE, Pa. -- When the Steelers' only perceived action in the offseason to replace Ryan Shazier was adding veteran inside linebacker Jon Bostic to the mix, the unrest among fans was palpable.
After all, the defense had struggled at times in 2017 with Shazier on the field. Then it looked nothing like the top-5 unit it ended the season with after the Pro Bowl inside linebacker suffered a major lower back injury last Dec. 4 at Cincinnati.
Nearly one week into training camp, the only thing that's been different about the Steelers' inside linebacker spot is that Sean Spence, signed to replace Shazier last season because primary backup Tyler Matakevich also was injured in that game against the Bengals, is gone. Bostic, Matakevich and Vince Williams have been rotating at the two inside linebacker spots.
It's a change from the offseason when it was the duo of Matakevich and Williams working with the first-team defense. Keith Butler said there are no guarantees about who will line up at those two spots when the Steelers open the regular season Sept. 9 at Cleveland.
Even Williams, who had a career-high eight sacks last season, isn't locked in as a starter, at least according to the Steelers' defensive coordinator.
"I don’t know. We’ll see. He wants to be in there," Butler told me of Williams. "He had eight sacks last year but he’s got to do other things to be a complete linebacker. I think he’s capable of doing it. He knows it. We’re going to put three guys in there and see how they do."
That Williams wouldn't be one of those two players would be surprising. But, as Butler noted, the Steelers want more out of the 2013 sixth-round draft pick. Among the team's defensive players, only Cam Heyward has been with the team longer.
But with Shazier out for at least this season, the Steelers need Williams to be the primary playcaller in the middle of their defense, a job Bostic handled last season in Indianapolis, as well.
With that responsibility comes leadership.
“I feel like everybody can be a leader. You don’t have to be an old guy to be a leader," Williams said. "It’s sort of like being a leader is an attitude. It’s not how long you have been here. It’s about what you have and your contributions to the team."
And that was perhaps Butler's point.
Without a player like Shazier in the middle of their defense, the Steelers are lacking an inside linebacker capable of making plays all over the field. Finding a linebacker capable of replicating Shazier's skillset would have been next to impossible. Guys who are 230 to 240 pounds who run 4.4-second 40-yard dashes typically are selected in the top 15 picks of a given draft -- as Shazier was in 2014.
From a physical standpoint, Bostic is the closest thing the Steelers have in that respect. The former Florida star was a 4.6 guy coming out of college in 2013. But the former second-round draft pick of the Chicago Bears has struggled with some injuries throughout his career, most notably missing the entire 2016 season after being traded from New England to Detroit -- the second time in his career he had been traded.
Ironically, that injury, a broken bone in his foot, was suffered at Saint Vincent College in his only other trip here.
The Steelers and Lions held joint practices in 2016 prior to meeting for a preseason game at Heinz Field. And Bostic was injured during the first day of the two-day session. He tried to practice on the second day, but had to leave early and wound up on injured reserve for the season.
"I think I got my foot stepped on the day before," he told me. "It was sore. And I think it just went. I saw the positive side of it."
And that was?
"It’s football. At the end of the day, I guess it was supposed to happen to me," Bostic told me. "I learned a lot. There’s a lot of stuff I took from that experience, watching a little bit. I was about to get exposed to a new scheme. I learned a lot more. I believe it really helped my game last year."
He signed with Indianapolis last year and resurrected his career, recording 97 tackles, one sack and three passes defensed.
With 32 total career starts under his belt -- one fewer than Williams -- he would seem to have a leg up for one of those starting spots. But the Steelers also want to give Matakevich, a 2016 seventh-round draft pick, an opportunity to show his wares.
Kevin Colbert is closely monitoring the position, much as he did the safety and tight end spots a year ago. When it became apparent the Steelers lacked depth at both of those spots, Colbert swung deals with Tampa Bay and San Francisco to acquire J.J. Wilcox and Vance McDonald prior to the start of the regular season.
With some veteran inside linebackers such as NaVorro Bowman, former Steelers star Lawrence Timmons and Gerald Hodges still available as free agents, and some teams having perhaps more useful players than they will keep at the position, Colbert wouldn't rule out bringing in another player there.
"That’s stuff that can continue to evolve. Just because we didn’t, doesn’t mean we won’t," Colbert said of adding an inside linebacker. "Jon Bostic, we thought was a nice signing that fit, and again, we’re never going to sell Tyler short. We never talk enough about, you know, Tyler got hurt a quarter later than Ryan did, I believe. Who knows where it would have been? We knew we couldn’t use Tyler on defense any more because his shoulder wouldn't have held up. We could do the special teams stuff because he knew how to avoid certain contact that may have caused a more serious injury than he was able to finish the season with. But we knew he couldn’t have – we didn’t think he could do that as an inside linebacker.
"So we don’t know what Tyler is capable of doing as a 16-game, potentially a 16-game starter. We have an idea of what Jon Bostic was able to do as a 14-game starter. So yeah, there are guys available, and who knows? Over the training camp, maybe we won’t be happy. Maybe we will. In the meantime, let’s look at these guys first."
And then there's the elephant in the room -- or on the practice field -- all of the new safeties the Steelers brought in to possibly help out at the position. Thus far, the Steelers have only toyed here and there with putting free agent signing Morgan Burnett or rookies Terrell Edmunds or Marcus Allen at a linebacker spot. Even cornerback Cam Sutton is a possibility there when the Steelers play their dime defense.
We haven't seen it put into motion just yet. But that could change, as well.
"We’ll see it," Butler promised. "The thing is that some of those guys are young. We want to see them play one position before we ask them to play another position. Cam Sutton is playing a lot of positions for us. We think he’s capable mentally of handling that. Terrell, Morgan Burnett is capable of doing that too. We’ll get into it and see how we like it. We’ll see what Marcus Allen can do, Marcus is a big rangy guy. He might be better off in the box. We’ll see."
