Robert Spears-Jennings
With roster cutdowns less than a week away, Thursday’s preseason game represented one of the final opportunities for players on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ bubble to make their case. Seventh-round rookie Robert Spears-Jennings did everything he could to make sure he wasn’t overlooked.
The rookie has benefitted from a rash of injuries in the safety room with Jalen Ramsey on Active/PUP and Jaquan Brisker dealing with an injury over the second half of training camp. Spears-Jennings didn’t get to play with the starting defense against the New York Jets Thursday night because DeShon Elliott played for the first time since his significant knee injury a year ago, but when he was in the game—including on special teams—he stood out.
Playing 24 snaps on defense and seven on special teams, Spears-Jennings showed he can help the team in multiple roles. Let’s take a look at his performance, starting with special teams where the seventh-round rookie is most likely to contribute early on.
Special Teams
Spears-Jennings logged snaps on every special teams unit except for kickoff return. And he filled the valuable role of gunner and jammer on the punt coverage and return units.
His first snap at gunner showed what a problem his athleticism can be. Watch at the top of the screen as he gets a step on the jammer right away with a straight line to the return man. If it wasn’t for the penalty, he would have taken the returner’s head off. It’s still great that he was able to force a penalty and get there so fast. His 4.32 speed proved valuable.
https://i.gyazo.com/09a76a251b56ab59a3fb675cea15fe0d.mp4
Speed alone won’t win every time as a gunner; sometimes you have to be able to beat the jam. On this play, he needed to cross over a jammer with inside leverage. He did a great job of swiping away the block without losing speed and set up a clear path to the returner.
https://i.gyazo.com/e591ccb431473cbaaf724cb85f116347.mp4
His speed came in handy as a jammer, too. Most players wouldn’t be able to catch up to get hands on the gunner in this situation, but Spears-Jennings (bottom of screen) manages to regain leverage to make a block.
https://i.gyazo.com/e591ccb431473cbaaf724cb85f116347.mp4
Mike McCarthy made it clear that any player who isn’t a starter on offense or defense will need to be useful on special teams. Spears-Jennings proved that to be the case Thursday.
Defense
He didn’t get to run with the starting defense, but he played 24 total snaps, starting in the second quarter, and acquitted himself well. Most of those came as a free safety, but he also lined up in the box at times.
His best play was a pass breakup on a checkdown pass to a running back spilled out of the backfield late. Spears-Jennings was aligned as a linebacker, dropped into his zone, read the running back, and triggered downhill to time his hit at the perfect moment to force an incompletion. They couldn’t have drawn it up any better.
https://i.gyazo.com/297af5fc3223a4cf9bf92469bac84a90.mp4
He already has a strong ability to diagnose plays early and act decisively. In addition to the pass breakup, he shows that same trait here coming downhill to tackle the catch. He closed a lot of ground in a hurry and limited the gain to just a few yards.
https://i.gyazo.com/bfa404b1c8d922105356d2379f9447f0.mp4
He did a solid job in run support, too. Some safeties are timid about coming downhill into a scrum to get blocked by linemen twice their size. Spears-Jennings was fearless here and helped cut off the running back’s cutback lane. He may have even made the tackle if it wasn’t for what looked like an illegal crackback block.
https://i.gyazo.com/84ca50aa86996874b9ad3650697e6848.mp4
Finally, I liked his technique here coming downhill and engaging a blocker. Some defensive backs get themselves tangled up with no ability to break inside or out, depending on where the running back goes. Spears-Jennings shocked the blocker with two hands to create space and earned himself the ability to mirror the running back.
https://i.gyazo.com/e1f08a96d5cc4e8c0329007bf22a926b.mp4
Spears-Jennings did everything asked of him and more in Thursday’s preseason game. Rayshawn Jenkins had a solid game as well, which complicates the roster math, but Spears-Jennings did what he could to state a strong case for the 53-man roster.