Aug 24, 2016 5 min read

PITTSBURGH – Jarvis Jones has heard the complaints and criticisms about his first three seasons as a member of the Steelers.

And you know what? The outside linebacker agrees with those who feel he has to be more productive as a pass rusher in his fourth season in the league.

“Everybody wants me to sack the quarterback,” said Jones, who will make his preseason debut when the Steelers travel to New Orleans Friday night. “That’s what I was drafted for. No matter how good I play the run, people look past that. They want to see me get sacks and hit the quarterback.

“Obviously I wasn’t as productive as I should have been over the past few years. When you’re not out there, it limits it. But I’m not going to seek comfort in that because when you get your opportunities, you’ve got to take advantage of them. Obviously, I didn’t take advantage enough of the opportunities that I did have.”

The Steelers’ 2013 first-round draft pick knows he is running out of opportunities in Pittsburgh.

The 26-year-old Jones is heading into a contract year with the Steelers after the team declined to pick up his option for 2017. It’s a motivating factor for Jones, for sure, but no more so than the fact he wants to prove he’s the same player that led the NCAA power conferences with 14.5 sacks in 2012 at Georgia.

“I just want to be productive,” said Jones, who had two sacks last season to bring his career total to five. “I want to be productive and make plays and be consistent. That’s the biggest thing, being consistent, obviously, and getting my sack count up.”

The Steelers plan on starting Jones and 2015 first-round draft pick Bud Dupree at outside linebacker this season and would like to do away with the rotation they used at the position last year that had Jones splitting time with James Harrison and Dupree doing the same with Arthur Moats.

But keeping Jones and Dupree on the field was an issue. Neither played in a preseason game to this point, with both sitting out with injuries, Jones to his back and Dupree with his groin.

The injuries were an ongoing thing with Jones. He missed two games as a rookie with a concussion and illness and then saw his second year wrecked by a wrist injury three games into the season. Last season, an elbow injury suffered in training camp held him back, though he started 15 games.

Despite, or perhaps because of that, the Steelers’ hopes for him remain high.

“Jarvis, I think it’s the same question every year, when’s it going to happen?” said outside linebackers coach Joey Porter. “He’s just been an unlucky guy with health. He gets some of the worst breaks a guy can get. First he breaks his wrist and misses the whole season. Then he comes out here in training camp last year and hurts his elbow. Then, you’re splitting time and it wasn’t traditional like we always had it, where you just go out and play the whole game unless you get tired and need a break. There’s just a whole lot of stuff he’s getting judged for and it’s not fair to him.”

Fair or not, they are the expectations for an outside linebacker in the Steelers defense. Porter knows all about that. He helped set the standard for the position in his eight seasons with the Steelers. After becoming a starter in his second season in 2000, he had just one season in which he recorded fewer than seven sacks, that coming in 2003 when injuries limited him to 14 games.

Last season, however, no Steelers outside linebacker recorded more than Harrison’s five sacks. And three of those came in one quarter in a blowout win over Indianapolis. Defensive coordinator Keith Butler still managed to coax 48 sacks out of his unit even with the outside linebackers producing just 15 as a group.

“We do a lot of stuff here within the scheme as outside linebackers,” Jones said. “We play the run, we drop into coverage. Obviously, we blitz a lot. If you look at our sack count from last year, the sacks came from all over the place. It came from everywhere and was a team contribution. For us as outside linebackers, we’ve got to get consistent pressure on the quarterback. I think we are very capable of doing that. We’ve got a nice group that can do that. If we can, we’ll be a whole lot better defense than we were last season.”

In addition to declaring Dupree out for Friday’s game, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin also said quarterbacks Bruce Gradkowski and Dustin Vaughan, offensive tackle Jerald Hawkins, fullback Roosevelt Nix and center Cody Wallace are definitely not going to play. … Rookie cornerbakc Artie Burns, the team’s top draft pick this year, is expected to see his first preseason action. He missed the past two weeks of practice with a quad injury. … Tomlin said he’s not concerned with Harrison’s interview with the league scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday regarding an Al-Jazeera America report involving PED use and doesn’t think it will be a distraction. “He’s a professional,” Tomlin said.