More than a coach
Former Steelers star receiver Hines Ward mourns death of mentor, friend Drake
Hines Ward was summoned by Steelers coach Mike Tomlin toward the end of the 2017 season to come and work with his wide receivers. He already had done that in training camp, as former players are wont to do, but this was different.
Richard Mann, the receivers coach who had been on Tomlin’s staff since 2013, was retiring at the end of the season. Ward was not only helping out Mann, 70, but it appeared as if he might be getting an early audition for when the job opened at the end of the season. Maybe even being groomed for the position.
Ward, the Steelers all- time leading receiver, was more than disappointed when he didn’t get the job. The irony is, his former coach, mentor and friend, Darryl Drake, did.
It was Drake who recruited Ward, a quarterback and two- time Clayton County offensive player of the year from Forest Park High School in Georgia, and persuaded him to come to University of Georgia, where Drake was the receivers coach. And it was
“The values he instilled in me to be the player that I was, still to this day, I teach some of same things he taught me. We lost a great man.”
— Hines Ward, on Darryl Drake, who died Sunday at the age of 62
opening win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Heinz Field, it seems apparent which path the Steelers will take with the rookie inside linebacker.
He finished with team highs of 10 tackles and 7 solos. Nothing he did suggested he won’t be a starter when the regular season
“Everyone is different,” said safety Terrell Edmunds, who led all NFL rookies in 2018 in snap count. “Some people, if you throw them into the fire too early, that can lead to a lot of negative exposure. Some people can’t handle that. … You’ve got to be in the right situation.”
Years ago, it would be unheard of for a Steelers firstround pick to start on defense.
From 2003 through 2011 — a stretch that included three Super Bowl appearances and two rings — the Steelers drafted four defensive players in the first round: Safety Troy Polamalu ( 2003), linebacker Lawrence Timmons ( 2007) and defensive linemen Ziggy Hood ( 2009) and Cameron Heyward ( 2011).
Not a single one started a single game in his rookie season.
Heyward is perhaps the best, and last, example of this sit- and- learn methodology. He started zero games as a rookie in 2011, zero as a second- year player in 2012 and finally earned his first start in the third game of his third season. After a slow start to his career, Heyward has become an All- Pro and one of the faces of the Steelers defense.
But times change. And so, too, has the Steelers approach when it comes to playing first- round picks on defense.
As the dominant defenses of the mid- 2000s got old, got slow and got replaced, the Steelers drafted seven consecutive defensive players in the first round from 2013 to 2019 when they moved up 10 spots to draft Bush.
The previous six earned starting roles at some point in their rookie seasons, including outside linebacker Jarvis Jones ( eight starts as a rookie in 2013), inside linebacker Ryan Shazier ( five in 2014), outside linebacker Bud Dupree ( five in 2015) and cornerback Artie Burns ( nine in 2016).
The past two years, the Steelers have ramped up their expectations for rookies even more. Outside linebacker T. J. Watt and Edmunds were first- round picks who were plugged in quickly and played from Game 1, Snap 1 of their rookie seasons.
Maybe it’s a change in philosophy. Maybe it was out of necessity. Or maybe both. But this approach is the polar opposite of the way the Steelers used to ease their defensive first - round picks into action.
“Going from college to the NFL is a big task,” Watt said. “I think a lot of guys take that transition a lot differently. You have to know who you are and know how you learn. Know if you learn better off the board or on the field.”
Results, for the most part, have been positive. In 2017, Watt made a historic debut against the Cleveland Browns. He became just the third player in NFL history to record two sacks and an interception in his debut.
But Watt admits the wear and tear of a long season — coupled with the unique nature of going straight from college to the NFL — caused him to hit the dreaded “rookie wall.”
“I heard about the rookie wall a lot,” Watt said. “You don’t want to believe it at the time. But looking back, definitely hit a wall at some point, just because it’s such a long offseason heading into the season.
“You go from playing in a bowl game to prepping for the combine to getting a few weeks off, nothing like the vets get off. Then, you go into four preseason games and a full season and then you get to playoffs. It’s definitely a grind.”
Last year, it looked as if the Steelers had the safety depth to ease rookie firstround pick Edmunds into the action. But when Morgan Burnett, a splashy freeagent signing of the offseason, was hampered by injuries, the rookie got elevated to the starting role. He went on to play 966 snaps on defense, second only to Sean Davis ( 979), plus an additional 223 on special teams. No rookie played more snaps across all three phases than Edmunds.
“Getting that rookie start, you’ve got a lot of weight on your shoulders, a lot of people looking at you,” Edmunds said. “You’ve got to go out there and play similar to a vet, because, when you’re out there on the field, they’re not going to look at you like [ a rookie]. They need you to be at your 100 percent the same way you need them to be at their 100 percent.”
So what’s this mean for Bush?
The Steelers rotated three players at the two inside linebacker positions in practice with Bush, veteran Vince Williams and freeagent Mark Barron taking reps with the first- team defense. But when the Steelers defense took the field for the first time Friday night, Bush was in there.
“Coming in here, I’ve been thrown into the fire,” Bush said. “I get the concept of both. But I don’t prefer either. Whichever path grabs me, I go along with it.”