Did Jaylen Samuels solidify his roster spot with performance vs. Titans?

Former Wolfpacker, Jaylen Samuels, had a big day on Saturday for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Samuels tallied 77 yards on 15 touches and had a 20 yd touchdown reception called back for holding.

Hold negated the TD but tremendous work in space by Jaylen Samuels. Very comfortable as a receiver. What got him drafted. #Steelers pic.twitter.com/BdHgPoNGjT

— Alex Kozora (@Alex_Kozora) August 25, 2018

It was more of what Pack fans witnessed during Samuels’ career in Raleigh. Now he’s showing his versatility, high in-game IQ, vision and elusiveness at the game’s highest level.

With all that said, Samuels is still just a rookie and he’s still fighting for a roster spot. So, did this performance finally earn it?

Rookie running back Jaylen Samuels turned heads with 77 yards on 15 touches against the Titans. Has he solidified a roster spot? He’s not ready to say that. pic.twitter.com/UK2GmX4hFM

— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) August 26, 2018

Part of what makes the rookie special is his ability to understand multiple positions and high-level offensive concepts. There is a reason he’s always in the right place at the right time, and a reason the ball tends to find him.

Just take a look at the excerpts from the PennLive article about Samuels’ growing his role by learning WR concepts for the Steelers.

“If you’re in the offense I feel like you should learn every position unless you’re an O-lineman or something,” Samuels said. “That’s just how I feel.”

That ‘feeling’ has helped him stay open-minded about being used just about anywhere on the field. The Steelers are starting to understand that and have started finding new ways to increase his role.

“Yeah I mean they’ve still been using me kind of the same way, still split out a little bit, using me as a receiver but also still giving me the ball in the backfield,” Samuels said. “So my role has kind of increased a little bit as I got more comfortable with the stuff I was already doing.”

And it’s not just the coaches who are excited about what he’s doing. Jaylen’s teammates are starting tonotice how valuable he could be to their offense. Here is what Ben Roethlisberger told 247 after Saturday’s game.

“There were some plays called specifically for him. And then there were just times where he was open, whether it was a check down or just finding him. I like that he gets out quick. When he doesn’t have a blitz to pick up, he’s getting out to where he needs to be, and I’m really encouraged by it. [Running routes] is something we ask our halfbacks to do, and when he lines up out there, he runs routes hard, and he got rewarded for it.”

Despite all the success he’s seen this preseason, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin isn’t quite ready to crown him. However, if you read between the lines here, there is the feeling that the Steelers staff likes what they see from the rookie and are going to push him as far he can go.

Here is what Tomlin told 247 sports about Samuels.

“I think he’s increasingly getting more consistent in terms of what we expect from him. He’s got a skill set that is good in some areas and that is very varsity and consistently varsity. Some areas in his game that he has to continue to grow. He’s finding more consistency in those areas that he needs to grow as he should and we’ll continue to take him through the process as we will all the others. I like his overall attitude in terms of the challenges that we are presenting to him in terms of areas that he needs to work. He caught a lot of balls, and he was a third down type back at N.C. State. We’ll challenge him in some other ways that might be somewhat new to him.”

From the way Tomlin ended that statement, it seems as if Samuels’ roster spot should be pretty secure at this point, but don’t count on him to throttle down after a few good performances. It seems as if Jay Sam is just getting started.