Daniel Ekuale tore his ACL in Week 8,<\/a> the Steelers had a backup nose tackle problem. There wasn\u2019t much behind starter Keeanu Benton. The team reportedly attempted to trade for help but couldn\u2019t find a partner. Brodric Martin-Rhodes proved ineffective. Black got the nod, essentially serving as the team\u2019s backup.<\/p>\nSome stats, per our charting.<\/p>\n
Last year, Yahya Black logged 65 snaps as a nose tackle in Pittsburgh\u2019s three-down front. A whopping 63 of them, 96.9 percent, came in Week 8 or later after Ekuale was lost for the season (he went down on his first snap, giving Black basically all of that Packers game).<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s Black\u2019s snap distribution in Pittsburgh\u2019s three down front from Week 8 and on.<\/p>\n
LDE\/LDT:<\/strong> 66
\nNT:<\/strong> 63
\nRDE\/RDT:<\/strong> 17<\/p>\nOver 40 percent of those came at nose tackle. He still logged time at defensive end, especially on the left side. The vast majority of that time was during Derrick Harmon\u2019s three-week absence from Weeks 13-15. When the group was healthy, Black primarily served as a nose tackle.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s old or new doesn\u2019t really matter. The focus is on Black\u2019s 2026 role. The more interesting question is whether Black will be just\u00a0<\/em>the backup nose tackle? Will he continue to play defensive end, or has Sebastian Joseph-Day assumed those snaps? Will Black push Keeanu Benton for starting nose tackle reps?<\/p>\nBlack showed talent last year. He\u2019s big, strong, a little more athletic than his frame suggests, and logged plenty of snaps to learn and grow from. How Pittsburgh uses and develops him will be key, as the Steelers count on second-year players like Harmon and Black to be anchors this season and beyond.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Read More<\/a> Alex Kozora<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to accounts from the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 coaching staff and beat writers attending spring practices, Yahya Black is playing nose tackle. New defensive line coach Domata Peko suggested Black could become one of football\u2019s best nose tackles. It\u2019s a different framing than a year ago, when Pittsburgh\u2019s old regime viewed Black as a defensive end<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":912617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790,23319,3643],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-912616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","category-moving","category-yahya"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}