Steelers 1st-round pick Terrell Edmunds on his NFL debut: 'Personally, I feel like I played good'

It wasn’t the NFL debut that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ prior first-round pick on the same Cleveland field 364 days prior. But for Terrell Edmunds, he’ll take it – personally, at least.

“Personally, I feel like I played good,” said Edmunds, the safety whom the Steelers drafted at No. 28 overall in April. “But we didn’t get the win, so there’s still work to do.

“It was fun game, a good game (to be his first). We didn’t get the outcome that we wanted, but we’ve got stuff to do to improve.”

A year after 2017 first-round pick T.J. Watt has two sacks and an interception in his first NFL game (also at FirstEnergy Stadium), Edmunds’ debut was not as splashy. He was not credited with a tackle but had a quarterback hit and a pass defended.

Edmunds started his first game, becoming just the seventh Steelers rookie to start the opening game of a season since 1974. Edmunds played 74 of the Steelers’ 89 defensive snaps.

He was used as the team’s primary strong safety in most packages, though at times he appeared to be playing more of a hybrid linebacker spot.

Edmunds said he did not have any lapses in communication nor in understanding his role in what has evolved into a Steelers’ defensive scheme that employs several hybrid packages.

“We already had four games already; the preseason games, you’ve got to count those, so this wasn’t the first time out there,” Edmunds said.

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Chris Adamski is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Chris at cadamski@tribweb.com or via Twitter @C_AdamskiTrib.