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Two young Steelers make their mark in preseason opener

4 min read

There was a lot of good to like about Friday night’s preseason opener for the Steelers against the Giants.

The 20-12 victory wasn’t the biggest news to come out of the night – though it’s never bad to win.

More important for the Steelers was the fact that a couple of young players, first-round draft pick T.J. Watt and first-year cornerback Mike Hilton continued to do what they had been doing at Saint Vincent College.

While veteran linebacker Arthur Moats had perhaps the game of his life with six tackles, three sacks and an interception, you expect to see that when you’ve got a veteran player going against end of the roster guys.

That’s not to discount the game Moats had, but he is more of a known commodity.

Or, as head coach Mike Tomlin put it, Moats was like “The 11th grader in a JV game at the end of the game. He’s supposed to dominate and he did.”

Watt and Hilton, however, are the unknown.

The Steelers have had a pretty good idea of what they have in both young players. They did, after use a first-round draft pick on Watt. And Hilton has been one of the standouts of the offseason, making play after play starting in rookie minicamp.

But they also had used a first-round draft pick on linebacker Jarvis Jones just a five years ago. That didn’t exactly work out.

And three years ago, they selected cornerback Senquez Golson in the second round of the draft. Golson shared a backfield with Hilton at Ole Miss. That hasn’t exactly worked out, either, as Golson hasn’t been able to stay healthy enough to make it through more than a couple of padded practices.

Watt had sacks on the Giants’ first two pass attempts Friday night. The first came when defensive end Cam Heyward flushed quarterback Josh Johnson out of the pocket and the second came when he was left unblocked.

As Tomlin said, they were perhaps the two easiest Watt will ever record.

At the same time, he still had to complete the play.

He finished with five tackles, two sacks and three quarterback hits, showing the motor and instincts that led to the Steelers selecting him with the 30th pick in this year’s draft.

Hilton, meanwhile, has been a pleasant surprise for a team searching high and low for help in the defensive backfield.

He finished with a team-high seven tackles, a fumble recovery, a sack, a tackle for a loss on fourth-and-one and another well-time blitz on fourth down late in the game that forced an errant throw.

“It wasn’t too big for him, the awareness, the communication,” said Tomlin of Hilton. “It was no different that what we’ve seen in the practice sessions. That was encouraging.”

Unlike Watt, Hilton, wasn’t a first-round draft pick. He was with three different teams as an undrafted rookie last season, including the Steelers, who signed him to their practice squad in early December.

Of course, one preseason game does not a career make.

And the news on the young players on the roster wasn’t all rosy.

Second-round draft pick JuJu Smith-Shuster suffered a concussion in the first quarter and did not return, putting the wide receiver’s availability for next week’s game against Atlanta in question.

And quarterback Josh Dobbs, a fourth-round pick who started the game and played into the third quarter, threw two bad interceptions early before settling in.

We’ll see next Sunday at Heinz Field against the Falcons if the players who performed well Friday night can carry that over into the next game and if other guys correct the mistakes they made.

But it was a very good place to start, particularly for Watt and Hilton.

Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com.

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