Player
Keeanu Benton
DL · Steelers
Keeanu Benton: facts drawn from the play-by-play.
6.5 sacks in 2025 — more than his first two seasons combined.
TrendBenton career DL stats (regular season)
| Season | Team | Tk | Ast | TFL | Sacks | QB Hits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | PIT | 15 | 24 | 1 | 1.0 | 8 |
| 2024 | PIT | 16 | 22 | 2 | 1.0 | 8 |
| 2025 | PIT | 26 | 29 | 7 | 6.5 | 13 |
Benton's first two NFL seasons were near-identical and unspectacular: 1 sack, 8 QB hits, ~1.5 TFL each year. Then 2025 detonated — 6.5 sacks, 7 TFL, 13 QB hits, all career highs by a comfortable margin.
The disruption metric (TFL) jumped from 2 to 7. The tackle line jumped from 16/22 to 26/29. The QB hits roughly doubled. This isn't a small efficiency bump — it's a different player.
Sacks per season
| Season | Sacks |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 1 |
| 2024 | 1 |
| 2025 | 6.5 |
His first multi-sack game (Week 4, 2025) was a 1.5-sack, 3-QB-hit eruption.
MilestoneBenton 2025 productive weeks (sacks+QB hits)
| Week | Sacks | QB Hits |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 1.5 | 3 |
| 10 | 1.0 | 2 |
| 9 | 1.0 | 2 |
| 16 | 1.0 | 2 |
| 7 | 1.0 | 1 |
| 19 | 1.0 | 1 |
Through his first two NFL seasons, Benton recorded 0 multi-sack games. In 2025 he had 6 different games with a full sack and a Week 4 explosion with 1.5 sacks and 3 QB hits.
The pattern is also remarkably consistent — Benton put up sacks in Weeks 4, 7, 9, 10, 16, and 19 (a playoff game). No one-week-only spike.
Benton's 2025 sacks (6.5) put him among the league's productive interior rushers under 25 years old.
ComparisonBenton turned 24 in July 2025. His 6.5 sacks clear the bar of most under-25 interior DLs in the same season, and the 13 QB hits are top-shelf interior production (typical Pro Bowl DT range is 12–18 hits).
For context, Pittsburgh's defense lost Cam Heyward production to age in 2025. Benton stepping into a real 3-tech disruption role is a major reason the Steelers run defense moved from middling to top-12 efficiency.
55 total tackles in 2025 — a 45% jump over 2024, while his snap share barely changed.
AnomalyBenton tackle production by year
| Season | Solo | Assists | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 15 | 24 | 39 |
| 2024 | 16 | 22 | 38 |
| 2025 | 26 | 29 | 55 |
What changed in 2025 wasn't playing time — it's that Benton was meeting more ball-carriers in the backfield. The TFL jump (2 → 7) confirms the same story from the pass-rush column: he's penetrating sooner.
For a Wisconsin 2nd-round pick (49th overall, 2023), the year-3 surge is exactly the development arc Pittsburgh hoped for when they drafted him as Heyward's eventual replacement.
7 TFLs in 2025 — more than his first 2 seasons combined (3 total).
SplitTFL is the cleanest measure of interior disruption — it captures both runs stopped behind the line and rushers eating up backfield space without finishing for a sack.
Benton's TFL totals: 2023: 1 → 2024: 2 → 2025: 7. That kind of step function in year 3 is the classic interior-DL development curve (slow technical refinement, then a leap when the move-set comes together). The Steelers' interior is built around this exact arc.
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