One of the advantages of playing for the Steelers is their alumni network, and Jaquan Brisker is taking full advantage of that. Having grown up in Pittsburgh, he knows the organization’s history well. And he just so happens to have ready access to former CB Ike Taylor, a two-time Super Bowl champion. Taylor has worked with the team in a scouting capacity, and we have seen him at training camp.
“It’s amazing. I try to get as much information from Ike all the time”, Brisker said, via the Steelers’ website. Taylor played for the Steelers from 2003 through 2014, and for long stretches during his career, he was one of the game’s best cover corners. Now Brisker is a part of that secondary, and he wants insight into how those great teams did it.
“They had a top defense every single year”, he said of the teams on which Taylor played. “Just trying to feel how they had that connection, how they were. He was like, they would always be with each other in the offseason, always doing different things, taking tours. And defense-wise, they always knew what the offense was doing. Just getting little bits and pieces that I can and just learning from the older guys”.
During the 2000s under Dick LeBeau as defensive coordinator, the Steelers routinely had one of the top defenses in the league. Their roster was stocked with high-level talent, whether it was Casey Hampton and Aaron Smith up front, Joey Porter and James Harrison on the edge, James Farrior and Larry Foote in the middle, or Ike Taylor and Troy Polamalu on the back end. Jaquan Brisker would love nothing more than to be the next great Steelers safety.
At least, nothing besides being a part of the Steelers’ next great Super Bowl-winning defense. Brisker was nine years old the last time Pittsburgh had that. Not that it hasn’t had some great defenses since then, but the trophies are what solidify legacies. Unless, of course, you were part of the 1976 defense that had won four other Super Bowls before and after. Then you get to talk about the one that didn’t win, one of the ultimate humblebrags.
A 2022 second-round pick by the Chicago Bears, Jaquan Brisker signed with the Steelers this offseason as an unrestricted free agent. He joins a secondary that already includes Joey Porter Jr., Jamel Dean, Jalen Ramsey, and DeShon Elliott. On paper, it kind of feels like one of their best defensive backfields since the good ol’ days. But paper champions don’t get the trophies.
Gaining insight from those who have done it is valuable, of course. But it’s fair to wonder how much from the mid-2000s is transferrable to today. Are the locker rooms, the personalities, the culture the same today? Certainly, what Taylor told Brisker about the players being close is meaningful in any era. And knowing what the offense is doing wouldn’t hurt, either.