Harrison and Woodley. Porter and Gildon. Lloyd and Greene.
When the Steelers have been at their best in recently years, they've had a pass rushing duo at outside linebacker that can strike fear into the heart of opposing quarterbacks.
Add Watt and Dupree to that list.
T.J. Watt and Bud Dupree combined for 26 sacks in 2019, making them one of the best pass rushing duos in the league. It was a half sack short of the team-record for a duo set by James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley in 2008.
But if Watt and Dupree are going to make a run at that record again, they'd better do it this season. With Dupree playing on the franchise tag in 2020, this could be the final season for those two together, something of which he is well aware.
"It’s bittersweet. It’s a blessing to get to this point in my career and to still be here, working through adversity and working hard and just being in this position I am today," Dupree said Monday as the Steelers continued their training camp at Heinz Field. "I’m in the driver’s seat of my career right now. I will go out and play the best that I can play, and everything will be in its place by the end of the year. I will be able to control my own destiny. But for right now, I just need to keep working hard and do what I do.
"At the end of the day, it’s a blessing. It is a business, too. It goes both ways."
It does, as Dupree said, go both ways. A first-round draft pick in 2015, Dupree was looked upon as a bust by some fans in his first couple of seasons, which were derailed by injuries. But he started coming on in 2018 before suffering a torn pectoral muscle that he played through, finishing that season with 5.5 sacks after picking up 4.5 in the first nine games before the injury.
Then came last season. Dupree and Watt became a dominant force, with both reaching career bests in sacks, Dupree with 11.5 and Watt with 14.5. The team has led the NFL in sacks the past three seasons -- not coincidentally lining up with the selection of Watt in the first round of the 2017 draft.
Prior to that, it was largely Dupree lining up opposite an aging Harrison, who by 2016 no longer demanded the attention of opposing offenses as he once did.
Watt and Dupree have developed a nice rapport with each other. They're constantly in each other's ear, working on pass rushing moves on the sideline or joking around.
"I just want to be able to be a game-wrecker. I want to be able to be somebody that the other team has to scheme around, and I know the same goes for Bud as well," Watt said. "We push each other each and every day. He’s learned some new moves throughout the offseason and so have I. Just making sure that there aren’t many times in practice where we are just sitting on the sidelines not working on our game. If it’s a special teams period and neither of us are out there, we’re trying to be on the sidelines and trying to be the best players that we can possibly be."
That won't change now with Dupree now playing what could be his final season with the Steelers. He'll make $15.8 million on the franchise tag this season. And then, the Steelers will have to give Watt a big raise in 2021 -- upwards of $10 million when they pick up the fifth-year option of his rookie deal -- making it unlikely that they'll be able to keep both.
Ironically, Watt and Dupree have spent the past three years pushing each other. Now, Watt's emergence as a bona fide NFL star might be what helps push Dupree -- off the Steelers' roster.
As they often do, the Steelers have planned ahead. They drafted Alex Highsmith in the third round of this year's draft, essentially as Dupree's replacement next year.
That hasn't stopped Dupree from working with the rookie.
"Alex is ahead, man. Alex is doing really good," Dupree said. "He is a smart kid. Very athletic. He moves well and he is always eager to learn stuff, so he is always asking questions and try to imitate some stuff that we do just to make sure that he is doing it correctly. He is running to the ball well. He is actually making plays on the field, too. It is good to see how he came prepared, even during the pandemic. He didn’t have OTAs or anything like that and he is doing pretty good."
Highsmith will likely be the guy who gives Watt and Dupree a breather at times this season when they need it.
Not that Dupree is planning on taking much time off during games. He played a career-high 91 percent of the team's defensive snaps in 2019, the most of any of the team's pass rushers. And he conditioned himself in the offseason to be able to handle that kind of workload again this year.
The pandemic might have stopped the Steelers from having OTAs and an offseason conditioning program. But it didn't stop Dupree.
"I did a lot of different stuff during the quarantine so I could make sure I stayed in shape and stayed active the whole time," he said. "I didn’t want to just sit around and be idle. That was a good thing that I had to do, not sit around and wait on the virus and go out and make sure I prepared myself for the season as if we were going to play. Now that we know that we are playing, it was a great gesture by me to just go out and make sure I kept working out during that whole lockdown time, even to just be able to leave the house and go to the gym and work out."
The contract situation? That will work itself out, as well.
Dupree filed a grievance with the NFL against the Steelers over his designation as an outside linebacker under the franchise tag rules. He wants to be considered a defensive end, instead. It's something the Ravens' Matthew Judon and Buccaneers' Shaq Barrett also have argued.
According to Dupree, the grievance remains open. But it doesn't change his desire one way or another to have another big season.
"It’s always a competition battle," Dupree said of he and Watt pushing each other. "We always want to see how good we actually can be."
• Mike Tomlin doesn't appear too concerned about the injury to All-Pro guard David DeCastro, who was not at practice on Monday.
"(DeCastro) is just dealing with a lower body injury," Tomlin said. "We’re managing it. He’s managing it. Hopefully, he will be back out here soon."
DeCastro had already missed the first week of padded practices with some sort of calf injury.
His injury, however, has afforded rookie Kevin Dotson to get some work with the first-team offense, including last Friday night in his first time back in pads after suffering a minor knee injury nearly two weeks ago.
I asked Dotson about that live practice in game-type situations being the one in which he returned and got plenty of work.
"It kind of gets your heart bumping," he said. "I think that helps me in most situations to get my adrenaline up. It makes me think faster, move faster, go a little harder. I was glad to be put in that situation to at least show my skill."
Dotson has looked good when he's been out there.
• Rookie wide receiver Chase Claypool continues to make big plays.
Monday, with the team opening practice working on the two-minute offense, Claypool got work with both the first and second units.
But it was his catch on a Mason Rudolph pass to finish off the second session -- after Ben Roethlisberger had thrown a touchdown to JuJu Smith-Schuster with two seconds remaining to give the offense a win in the first session -- that caused a buzz today.
Rudolph guided the second-team offense to the 2 with 17 seconds remaining and had just missed a touchdown on his previous throw when the receiver couldn't get his feet down in bounds.
Going back to the well, this time with Claypool, Rudolph targeted him in the front corner of the end zone and Claypool went up over 6-foot-2 cornerback James Pierre in the end zone and got both feet down before falling out of bounds for the score.
Earlier, he had caught two big chunk plays to put the second unit in position to score.
• In my 53-man roster prediction over the weekend, I had wide receiver Deon Cain not making the cut.
Maybe Cain saw that. He had what was easily his best practice that I've seen in this camp. If he continues to perform like that, he'll be tough to cut.
• The Steelers are getting healthier, despite the DeCastro injury. Everyone who had bumps and bruises was pretty much back Monday. The notable exceptions were rookie running back Anthony McFarland sitting out with an undisclosed issue and long snapper Kameron Canaday missing because of a knee injury he suffered last week.
Chris Wormley, who has missed as much time as anyone, was at least a partial participant Monday.
That's what happens when you have a competitive roster and the deadline for cuts is coming up Saturday. The roster looks deeper than we first thought at a number of positions. And there are still spots up for grabs, especially with the expanded practice squad.
But there's a big difference in salary when it comes to making the active roster and that 16-man practice squad.
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