Evidently, the Pittsburgh Steelers weren’t done adding to their defensive backfield in free agency. They signed CB Jamel Dean and S Darnell Savage earlier this week. Then on Thursday, they signed former Chicago Bears S Jaquan Brisker.
Our very own Josh Carney broke down Brisker’s film. Carney likes the edge that Brisker plays with on the field. But just who is Brisker? Here are five things to know about the Steelers’ newest safety.
Pennsylvania Through And Through
Jaquan Brisker is coming home. By signing with the Steelers, he’s returning to where he’s played football at every other level. He played both football and basketball at Gateway High School. As a senior, he caught 42 passes for 781 yards and 11 touchdowns. He was also named First-Team All-Section in basketball that year.
From there, Brisker first went to college at Lackawanna College, a junior college in Scranton, PA. There, he played so well that he was named First-Team NJCAA All-American in his second year. That caught the eye of plenty of colleges, and he opted to stay in-state at Penn State.
Brisker appeared in 34 games with 21 starts for the Nittany Lions. He had 153 total tackles, 9.5 tackles for a loss, five interceptions, knocked down 14 passes and recovered one fumble in his time at Penn State.
Learned Humility From Junior College Journey
Jaquan Brisker had all the talent coming out of Gateway High School. However, academics meant he had to take a different route through college. For some, that may be a negative. Brisker found the silver lining in Scranton.
“You just take everything one day at a time,” Brisker said in the Chicago Tribune’s 2022 rookie primer. “But really (I learned to) just be humble from the beginning. Me going through junior college is going to help me a lot. It helped me be more mature and helped me see where I was at.”
The two years at Lackawanna College didn’t hurt Brisker in terms of his football journey. He excelled, then went to Penn State before becoming a second-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. It certainly sounds like that time gave Brisker benefits he might not have otherwise gotten.
Fueled By Loss
As a young kid, Brisker looked up to his older brother Tale’. He wanted to be around him, and he wanted to be him.
“Things I can remember, just putting on my brother’s pads, his helmet, just carrying things around like it was a football,” Brisker said in his Meet The Rookies video for chicagobears.com.
Unfortunately, Tale’ never got to see his younger brother play in the NFL or even at the college level. He never doubted that Jaquan would make it that far, though. At only 19 years old, Tale’ was shot and killed in Prarie View, Texas. Jaquan Brisker was only 15 years old. Jaquan also spoke to Tale’ not long before he was shot.
“Our last conversation, he said ‘just do your thing in football,’” Jaquan Brisker said in an interview with the Centre Daily Times. “He was in college, it was his freshman year. He just told me, ‘If anybody in the family makes it, it will be you.’ That stuck with me. … I knew I had to do it for him. My mindset has always been to do it for my brother. Every day I come out here and practice, or at a game, it doesn’t matter if I’m sore, it doesn’t matter if I hurt, I know I gotta do it for him.”
Brisker grieved for quite a while, but he honored his brother by how he conducted himself on the football field. He fought through the grief and the loss and forged ahead.
Warrior Mentality And A Bow And Arrow
If you’ve watched some Jaquan Brisker highlights, you probably have seen a distinctive bow-and-arrow celebration. You may have also seen one thick line of eyeblack down one cheek. Those stem from Brisker’s warrior mentality.
“I’ve been doing it since junior college, just putting the mark down my face,” Brisker said in his Player Profile for the Bears’ YouTube channel. “I feel like I’m a warrior. I’m gonna lay it all out on the field, that I’m really unstoppable. It really came from the commentator the first game against Wisconsin. I remember I battled through a couple of injuries. When I got that last pick, he was like, that kid’s a warrior! And that’s how I really think of myself. Every time I do the bow and arrow, that’s who I think I am, a warrior.”
Carney’s film study certainly shows that Jaquan Brisker plays like a warrior from the safety position. He’s got the attack mentality down pat. You’ll even find “Warrior” with three bow-and-arrow emojis in Brisker’s X/Twitter profile.
A Love For (The Social Media Network Formerly Known As) Twitter
Speaking of X/Twitter, Brisker is a frequent user of the social media network. He still prefers to call it Twitter, just like a lot of people. But why does he love it so?
“You can speak your mind, but speak the reality,” Brisker said in an interview on Sippin’ With Screeden on the Bear’s YouTube channel. “And then the fans. It’s really like your journal.”
Brisker sees X/Twitter as more than that, though. He sees it as a place for positivity, as a way to encourage young players who are getting drafted. He also sees it as a way to produce positivity in the world at large.
“If you think about just the outside world, you wouldn’t want anyone else to fail that you’re close around,” Brisker said. “Just make sure you build everybody up, make sure you’re cheering people on, things like that. But just around the world, just period, make sure that we come together and we’re not divided. I think that’s important.”
If only we as a world population would take a page (or post) out of Brisker’s book and use social media as a tool of encouragement, rather than using it to tear others down.
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