Damontae Kazee wears No. 23 for the Pittsburgh Steelers, so it caught the attention of a visitor to the locker room when a prominent golden “27” was spotted dangling from a jewelry chain that hung around Kazee’s neck after an organized team activities session earlier this month.
“That’s my old number,” said Kazee, a seven-year NFL veteran safety.
“It’s funny because (rookie and current Steelers No. 27 Cory Trice) was ‘23’ in college — so I thought about trading him. But my family had already bought (No. 23) jerseys, so I can’t really do that to them.”
Kazee laughed. But during that same conversation, he acknowledged he’d assumed his family was going to be in the jersey-purchasing market this spring — and not just because of the uniform number but for an entirely different color/team scheme.
In the moments after last season’s Steelers finale, Kazee didn’t sound like a player who believed he’d be back for a second year with the organization. During OTAs, he reiterated even more strongly that in January, he didn’t have faith the Steelers would bring him back.
“No!” Kazee said. “I’d gotten rid of my apartment and everything.
“But I know business is business. So you keep your head up.”
It took only a day into the NFL’s “legal tampering” free-agency period in March for the Steelers and Kazee to agree to a two-year, $6 million deal.
“Of course, I’m happy to be here,” Kazee said. “It was a lot of teams that called out. But I liked this program over here. I like the brotherhood. I like the coaches. Everybody is just one unit around here. Everybody’s close. So this was an easy choice for me to come back.”
For 2023, Kazee has the benefit of an entire year-plus to fall back on as he prepares for a role in the Steelers secondary.
Most easily defined as a “ball-hawking” free safety, Kazee is expected to team with Keanu Neal as safeties who play with All-Pro Minkah Fitzpatrick. Over the final nine games last season after Kazee made his Steelers debut, it was Terrell Edmunds who partnered with Fitzpatrick and Kazee. But Edmunds left via free agency, and eight-year veteran Neal was signed to a two-year deal.
According to Pro Football Focus, Kazee played about three times more snaps on passing plays than on running plays. Edmunds’ ratio trended far more toward being deployed on running plays.
The Steelers also increasingly used a three-safety look late in the season, and Kazee played 52% of the snaps when he suited up.
The 2023 division of labor between Kazee and Neal is expected to fall similarly to that of Kazee and Edmunds last year.
“It’s not too much different,” Fitzpatrick said. “We’ve got a nice rotation, kind of like we did last year (but) now it’s just Keanu instead of Terrell. We are still figuring out what it looks like. It’s going to look a little bit different, probably — but not too much different.”
Kazee has 14 interceptions over his past 59 games. PFF graded him the NFL’s seventh-best safety among 96 who played enough snaps to qualify last season, including the ninth-best coverage grade.
Last year, Kazee was signed in May, and he arrived with the knowledge he was going to serve a suspension (later announced as for three games) stemming from a DWI arrest while playing for the Dallas Cowboys in 2021.
Perhaps that incident and the penance he paid for it provided Kazee with perspective — or perhaps his outlook on life has always been positive. But any inquiry into his satisfaction level with his role on the team is answered by Kazee via the frame of a much wider life lens.
“No matter what, I am going to feel good,” Kazee said. “I always tell everybody, it’s a blessing, man, a blessing to be here. You don’t know what a person goes through throughout our (personal private) life, so it’s just like when we are here working with each other it is going to be like a brotherhood. So I enjoy every moment.”
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Chris Adamski is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Chris by email at cadamski@triblive.com or via Twitter .