Lawrence Timmons has been the breakout player of the preseason so far. He makes splash plays regularly and has been hard to ignore with his speed and suddenness.

Timmons does have flaws. He's not real willing to fill against the run - he kind of hangs at the back of the pile on runs towards him. Maybe that's a preseason thing, low on the willingness to give up the body. Hopefully it changes in time for the regular season.

When he does take on blockers, he's not winning. If he starts, the DL will have to do a great job keeping him clean on inside runs. The big plays he makes are mostly in packages or passing situations where he's allowed to use his speed.

Foote isn't much better against blockers, but he does have a huge advantage in experience and he's always well prepared. Foote isn't fast enough to cover or blitz effectively, and that's becoming a problem against teams that spread out the Steelers' base defense by going to one back, two TE sets.

Timmons will get a ton of work this year no matter how the depth chart unfolds, but it's becoming harder and harder for Dick Lebeau and Mike Tomlin to ignore the way this competition is headed.

Here's some visual evidence:

Timmons and Foote