One of the biggest losses of the offseason for the Pittsburgh Steelers was cornerback Mike Hilton leaving to sign with the Cincinnati Bengals. Hilton was the team’s slot cornerback which is essentially a starter and his ability to impact the defense in multiple ways made him a huge asset.

Pittsburgh defensive coordinator Keith Butler spoke to the media on Friday and talked about safety Antoine Brooks Jr., who they are counting on to be the next Hilton.

Not yet. But we hope he does. He’s gotten better. He’s practiced better these last two practices, but we’ve been in shorts. Everybody looks good in shorts. So, we’ll see. We’ll see when he gets the pads on and he starts coming from outside and putting a little fear into the quarterback a little bit. I think he’ll be good at that.

I won’t lie. This makes me a little nervous. Brooks played a whopping 29 defensive snaps last season appearing in four games. He had two tackles in those 29 snaps. The idea he is suddenly going to take over Hilton’s role, playing nearly half the defensive snaps and moving from blitzer to coverage player on the fly seems like a huge ask.

But I want to ask all of you. Are you confident in Brooks taking Hilton’s place on defense? Let us know in the comments.