No. 1 pick Edmunds says he’s ready for next test

field because we’re trying to be a No. 1 defense. We got to make all those picks.”

The Steelers are eager to see Edmunds on several fronts.

They haven’t practiced any of the dime defensive packages with six defensive backs at OTAs, preferring to get the young players assimilated to their basic 3-4 defense and nickel package. Edmunds will be a key fixture in the dime, using his 6foot-1, 217-pound frame to play more like a linebacker.

What’s more, they are eager to see him in pads, where his reputation as an aggressive player, coupled with his size, is one of the reasons he has been compared to Seattle’s Kam Chancellor.

“I’m ready for that,” said Edmunds, the 28th overall pick in the draft from Virginia Tech.

“I haven’t had the pads on in a while. It’s time to go out and hit somebody. All those bobble catches, you might be able to knock them out. You never know how you can mess up the timing with the shoulder pads on.”

Edmunds’ path to playing a significant role in the Steelers defense is a short one. Recent history has shown the Steelers are not hesitant to move their top picks quickly into the lineup, especially since Butler replaced Dick LeBeau as defensive coordinator.

And, after not taking an inside linebacker with any of their draft choices, the Steelers are counting on using Edmunds and safety Morgan Burnett, their top free-agent pickup, to assume that role in a lot of their sub packages.

Edmunds is ready for the job.

“I definitely have the mindset one day I could possibly be the top guy,” Edmunds said.

“Right now, I’m with the [second team], but you never know when you might be the top guy.”

Then he added: “It’s all good now. There’s no more, OK, you’re a rookie. You got to step up. You’re either going to make a play or you’re not going to make a play. There’s no time to think you’re here still learning. It’s going to move on without you if you don’t learn it. You got to pick it up fast.”

And Edmunds has done that, showing the coaches how quickly he has been able to pick up what they’ve been teaching the past three weeks.

Edmunds is the team’s only rookie who hasn’t signed a contract, but that is a foregone conclusion, he said.

“It is nothing he even thinks about — “I know it’s going to happen eventually,” he said.

The dropped interceptions? Now that’s another matter.

“If it’s a dropped pick, it’s not a good play for us,” Edmunds said. “It’s OK, but it’s not a big play.”

Edmunds appears right on schedule to make more of those — big plays, that is.

“I haven’t had the pads on in a while. It’s time to go out and hit somebody.” — Safety Terrell Edmunds, Steelers first-round pick