Loudermilk feeling urgency to make impact on Steelers’ d-line

He’s looking ahead to his fourth NFL season, but he’s not guaranteed a roster spot.

It doesn’t seem very long ago that Isaiahh Loudermilk was considered potentially significant to the future of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defensive line.

Check the calendar. The roster, too. And look at Loudermilk’s bio.

Now 26, Loudermilk can hardly believe he is embarking on his fourth year as a pro.

“It flies by,” Loudermilk said after an organized team activities session this past week. “It really does.

“I think when you’re in it, it doesn’t. It’s a sport that we play, and it’s fun, so the seasons are long but it does fly by because when you look back at it, it is a great time with your teammates, friends, just playing a game you’ve played your whole life. So Year 4 is kind of crazy to think about it. But we will see. Hopefully, we can keep going have a lot of years left in me.”

When the Steelers specifically targeted Loudermilk during the 2021 draft — with Miami on the clock in Round 5, trading a future fourth-rounder to enable to them to take him — the hope was he would begin a youth movement on a defensive line that was in need of a refresh.

But Loudermilk has watched the Steelers take a new, young defensive lineman in the three drafts since. All of a sudden, the potential Cam Heyward clone Loudermilk once seemed to be has reached NFL “middle age.”

He is in the “contract year” of his rookie deal and not guaranteed a spot on the season-opening 53-man roster after showing spurts but inconsistency over his 42 games (five starts) and 585 defensive snaps played in the NFL.

“Everything’s kind of become a little bit more second nature in terms of playing,” Loudermilk said. “I can feel things and I can see things that I haven’t seen the last couple years, and I am able to get into (the play) quicker. That just comes along with it, four years of watching NFL film and playing NFL ball, just getting the feeling of it.

“But now, it’s Year 4. It’s time for me to kind of step up and not play with any hesitation, just kind of go out and play how I know I can play.”

Loudermilk probably has to impress during training camp and the preseason to carve out his role among a Steelers defensive line corps that features veteran starters Heyward and Larry Ogunjobi, a potential emerging star in second-year Keeanu Benton and veteran role players such as free-agent signee Dean Lowry, interior presence Montravius Adams and holdover Breiden Fehoko.

Additionally, Jonathan Marshall is in his third season as part of the organization, and Iowa’s Logan Lee was a sixth-round pick in April.

Do the math. It’s far from a sure thing Loudermilk will make the 53man roster. He acknowledges feeling the urgency.

“I definitely think so,” Loudermilk said, “just because it is a contract year, but at the same time I feel like I have challenged myself this offseason just to mentally regroup. Physically, I have felt it the last couple years, but mentally it’s more about believing that I belong here, just being able to go out and play fast. I think having a couple years under my belt has definitely helped with that. “

Loudermilk has 46 career tackles (28 solo, one for loss), one sack and one QB hit. Last season, he appeared in a career-best 16 games, but he also was deemed a healthy inactive for Week 15 in Indianapolis. Playing a season-high 31 defensive snaps in Week 1 and totalling just 10 combined defensive snaps in the final three games (including playoffs) does not bode well for Loudermilk’s career.

Still, the skillset in that 6-foot-7, 300-pound frame remains. So does the potential that so compelled the Steelers to aggressively draft Loudermilk just 37 months ago.

“This offseason I thought to myself, ‘It’s time to get going,’ ” he said. “I am gonna do everything I can physically and mentally just to make sure I can put myself and the team in the best position possible.”