Five weeks into the season, we really have very little idea how Steelers first-round pick Ziggy Hood will look when he gets his first extensive playing time as a pro. Coming into this week's game, Hood has less than 25 defensive snaps under his belt -- less than five per game. And that includes 16 snaps last week, many of which came after Aaron Smith's rotator cuff started aching.
But if his 16 snaps in the Lions game is any indication, expect to see a defensive end who's able to use his hands pretty well, but also seems somewhat hesitant to really cut loose on the pass rush for fear that he'll get caught out of position. Hood did manage to help flush Daunte Culpepper once, but he also had another play where he held off on going all out for Culpepper, likely because he feared it was a screen pass. He doesn't look like a liability, but in his first serious action he wasn't a big asset either.
If you want to get a look at how Hood has played, Dagger over at Post Game Heroes has put together a cutup that has every one of Hood's snaps against the Lions.
As Mike Tomlin has made clear, the Steelers don't expect Hood to replace Smith -- he likely will get only half the snaps Travis Kirschke gets as long as Kirschke's back holds up. But they do expect him to contribute. And by doing so, Hood will now get much more experience than the Steelers had expected him to get. And while that won't help the Steelers win games this year, it will likely pay off in 2010 when the Steelers will have Smith back, a more experienced Hood and Sunny Harris (added back to the roster when Smith went on the IR).
