Mike Tomlin Makes Decision On Jalen Ramsey’s Future With Steelers

The Pittsburgh Steelers will be keeping longtime star cornerback Jalen Ramsey at safety.

Ramsey played safety for the Steelers against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 9 on Sunday due to injuries in the secondary. With the availability of defensive backs Jabrill Peppers, Cory Trice Jr., and Chuck Clark all up in the air for Week 10, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin confirmed Ramsey would remain at safety.

“Jalen will continue to work exclusively at safety,” Tomlin said at his press conference on Tuesday. “We value his play, his positional flexibility. It’s an asset to us. It gives a lot of people things to work on. But certainly under the circumstances that we’re under right now, we deemed that appropriate as we did last week in terms of nailing him down there.”

Kyle Dugger, whom Pittsburgh acquired from the New England Patriots, will play safety alongside Ramsey. Tomlin was impressed with how well Dugger and Ramsey played with each other. So, he wants to see it for at least one more week.

“Certainly excited about a complete week’s work with Kyle Dugger,” Tomlin said about Dugger and Ramsey. “Not only in terms of knowing what to do – certainly he displayed an ability to learn quickly and play and detail that component of it – but the communication component of it, the work within groups.

“I thought Jalen Ramsey did an awesome job with him. Particularly as we got into the weekend last week, making sure that they were coordinated as safeties. But all that work didn’t mean anything. We still had to get in the stadium and make it happen. It certainly was a challenge. It lacked a little bit of fluidity there early on. But I thought as those two worked, and worked together, their experience in the National Football League. Even though they’re somewhat new to us, and whether it’s Jalen’s new to the safety position, I thought their global, overall experience and talent showed up as the game went on.”

In his first start at safety with the Steelers, Ramsey recorded five tackles in Pittsburgh’s 27-20 upset win over the Indianapolis Colts.

The Steelers are set to go on the road to play the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday.

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