By: G.Stryker
It’s been a fairly healthy week for the Steelers. Vince Williams, who injured his hamstring two weeks ago, is a full participant in practice and is ready to go. Perhaps he wanted to come back because he was missing out on all of the fun the defense had last week. LJ Fort filled in admirably, but unfortunately suffered an ankle injury that held him out of practice all week. Darrius Heyward Bey (Ankle) and Morgan Burnett (hamstring) also missed practice this week as well.
The only other players of note were Terrell Edmunds, who suffered a calf injury in the last game, but practiced fully all week. Also Ben Roethlisberger is battling an elbow issue. He’s been held out of Wednesday practices starting after the week 1 game when it was injured, but he will start Sunday. Just keep an eye on his performance. If passes start to sail, he’s dealing with some pain. The bye week will be most important for Ben to get his elbow back to normal.
I track and try to predict timelines for Steeler players returning to the field. This is a link to our current spreadsheet. It will update on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday after the practice reports are issued, as well as Post-Game and Tuesday after Coach Tomlin's press conferences. Bookmark it to see how the health of the Steelers are shaping up each week.
I believe the inactive players will be:
- Mason Rudolph: Healthy Scratch/ 3rd QB
- Morgan Burnett: Officially ruled out
- Darrius Heyward Bey: Officially ruled out
- LJ Fort: Doubtful so he probably won’t play
- LT Walton: Seems to be the choice to be inactive when the D line is healthy
- Zach Banner: The offensive line is healthy, so he will not play.
- Marcus Allen: I don’t understand why the team won’t activate this talented, athletic safety. Perhaps he’s just not ready to go yet on special teams? He seems to be the go to for inactives, so he’ll be on my list until they find a reason to activate him...
After getting 6/7 correct last week, my predictions are 30/35 on the year.
