Philadelphia Eagles v Steelers: 5 big questions heading into Week 5

What will Darius Slay’s role be?

Through their first three games of the season, JuJu Smith-Schuster has been the Steelers #1 wide receiver. he leads the team in receptions (17), yards (160), and touchdowns (3). His connection with QB Ben Roethlisberger is quite noticeable, and it’s resulted in a lot of easy offense for the black and yellow.

However, Smith-Schuster spends a majority of his time operating out of the slot in the Steelers offense. Darius Slay has spent time traveling opposing receivers all over the field in the past, but the Philadelphia Eagles’ current lack of depth at outside corner may lead the team to lean towards keeping Slay on the boundary.

Both Avonte Maddox and Trevor Williams are down with injuries, and  Cre’Von LeBlanc and Nickell Robey-Coleman are both exclusively slot corners. Simply considering the state of the Eagles DB room, keeping Slay on the boundary while LeBlanc and NRC rotate in on JuJu may be the more logical approach here.

The Eagles were so thin at corner against the Niners that Jim Schwartz was forced to slide Jalen Mills back outside. The last thing the Eagles can do at the moment is sacrifice even more depth at the position by having Slay trail a receiver in the slot.

Or, the Philadelphia Eagles coaching staff may simply view stopping JuJu as their number one priority, meaning Slay would trail him 24/7. Either way, it will be one of the more interesting matchups to follow come Sunday.