Former Steelers Safety Terrell Edmunds Eager To Challenge Criticism From Steelers Fans

The Pittsburgh Steelers have spent their last three first-round draft picks on offensive players, but prior to that, the team invested seven years of first-round selections (2013-2019) into the defensive side of the football. Those picks gave results that were all over the place. Included were definitive busts, Jarvis Jones, Artie Burns, and Devin Bush while Bud Dupree left for more money and Ryan Shazier's sudden career-ending injury stopped a dynamic player in his tracks. TJ Watt will wear a gold jacket one day, and then there is the unresolved case of Terrell Edmunds.

Steelers Expectations Didn't Line Up With Edmunds' Own

Players in the NFL don't get to decide where they go on draft day, but it is a universal understanding that it is better to be drafted in the first round rather than in the fourth or fifth. The money increases the higher you are selected. Upper-tier picks get endorsements and recognition, and if any player had their choice of going first overall versus in the middle of the third, no one is going to leap at the third-round option. However, in Edmunds' situation, he may have been better off as a lower-round pick instead of the Steelers taking him in the first round (28th overall).

You won't hear Edmunds ever make that particular argument, but if you look over his body of work during the five years he spent in Pittsburgh as though he was a mid-third-round pick, then the results are acceptable with consistency on his side. Edmunds compiled five interceptions, five sacks, one fumble recovery and had 26 PBU (Passes Broken Up). 

There were only three games in his career that he didn't play in. That kind of endurance never goes unrecognized, but again, these positive reviews are all from the mid-third-round perspective. The reason that Edmunds is in that strange limbo is because he was a first-round pick from a team that expects a great deal from their first-round defensive choices. He was reliable, but that falls short of the line when the bar is set so high.

Edmunds Defends Steelers Career Results

Edmunds was a guest on the 2nd Wind Podcast, co-hosted by Jarvis Miller and Great One in late June where he was asked about his time in Pittsburgh and how he viewed his career in comparison to what the media and those outside the facility were saying. 

Miller asked Edmunds what he thought about his career so far, stating that there were quite a few people who thought he had "left more meat on the bone", or that he never lived up to the potential he had. Edmunds had obviously heard the outside noise that circulated throughout the offseason, but he had a different view of how his time with the Steelers should be remembered.

“I think every year I progressed, and that was my main goal every year. Regardless, if I had – I’m just throwing out random numbers – if I had ten tackles my rookie year, my goal was to have 15 tackles next year, and I did that. If I had one interception, or no interceptions, or one PBU, I wanted to have two or four PBUs, and I did that. So, it’s like every year I felt like I progressed, the numbers they show it.”

There was no naivety in what Edmunds was saying. This was coming from a player who understood how he was being viewed by a large number in the football world, but he trusts the process he has set before himself. He isn't out there to please everyone because that is impossible and always sets you up to fail. Considering how cutthroat the business side of the NFL can be,  Edmunds keeping that positive drive is why he hasn't wavered in his thinking.

“I don’t think you ever gonna make everyone accept you anyways. If you do a poll of 100 people, 75% of people gonna say one thing, 25 gonna say something else. Like, everybody not gonna be on the same page.”

Steelers Watch As Edmunds Trusts The Process For The Next Phase

Anyone who has played for Mike Tomlin knows how important it is to get the fundamentals right. There is a reason for everything that Tomlin does and for players to truly flourish with the Steelers, they must buy into what he is selling. While Edmunds may not be a part of the Pittsburgh team any longer, he will be bringing that attitude into his fresh start with the Philadelphia Eagles. He knows that as long as he trusts the process, everything will fall into place.

It is a dangerous thing for a player to get too wrapped up in what the media and fans are saying, especially during the long offseason when any snippet can become a week-long news story. Edmunds has been experiencing that even before he hit an NFL field. On the podcast, he recalled a time after he was drafted when he made the mistake of reading some comments from fans on what was expected of him. Some were level-headed, but one just made Edmunds laugh at how ridiculous some people were.

“I remember my rookie year I was looking at it, somebody told me ‘I want you to have 10 picks, 150 tackles.’ What? They want you to be on some Madden create a player, I’m like, bro, you said 10 picks, 150 tackles? Who did that?”

Edmunds brings that sturdy sense of self into Philadelphia, which many in the NFL consider to be among the top teams in the league entering the 2023 season. It would be easy for Edmunds to be overwhelmed by the Steelers moving on from him and the looming pressure that comes from signing with a Super Bowl contender, but none of that seems to be getting into his head. Whether he is in Pittsburgh or anywhere else, it's about the process and if he can stick to that, perhaps he just might prove everyone else wrong.

“So I’m enjoying the process, getting to my main goal…You gotta love the process, that’s still what I’m in today. Like I’m not the exact player I wanna be. I’ve been a great player, of course, I’ve been a good player, but I want to be the top.”

Was Terrell Edmunds really a bust for the Steelers? 

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