So, do we finally have an update on Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman Stephon Tuitt? With a little reading between the lines, it seems we do. On Wednesday, outgoing Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert joined the 93.7 The Fan PM team for a conversation about all things Steelers. One of those topics was on the return of Tuitt.
The Steelers were horrible about the run in 2021. A blind man could've seen that. They were without Tyson Alualu who suffered a season ending injury in Week 2. They were without Tuitt as he recovered mentally from the loss of his brother who was tragically killed after being struck by a car, and because of a knee injury he suffered early in the summer.
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Tuitt returned to the Steelers' South Side facility one time during the 2021 season. But he never practiced with the team and was gone within a few days of his return. Tuitt reportedly wasn't in any type of shape to have a chance to come off the injured reserve and contribute last year.
So, here we are in May of 2022 and we still haven't heard a definite answer on Tuitt. But then Colbert was asked Wednesday about the Steelers rush defense by the 93.7 team. They asked how the Steelers planned to rebound against the run in 2022, because the only outside addition to the defensive front was third round pick DeMarvin Leal. Leal is lean at 285 pounds, and will likely be asked to put on some weight during his rookie season so that he can develop into a good run stopper. This was Colbert's response:
"Referencing back to Devin, adding Myles Jack, getting Tyson Alualu back in the mix, Cam [Heyward] back, potentially having Stephon [Tuitt] get back up to speed and be with us."
Interesting enough Colbert brought up Tuitt on his own. So, they followed up "is it assured Kevin that Tuitt's coming back? And when do you need to know?"
"I think that we have always given him the space he needs to maneuver through his knee injury. Of course, he had a personal issue that he was working his way through, and we've supported them. We've been in communication. It's all been positive. But again, once you miss a season like that, you have to determine what kind of player will be coming back, and that's what we're anxious to see. And again, we're going to support that the whole time."
Cam Heyward and Stephon Tuitt were a dominate force from 2019 to 2020 / Next Gen Stats
There isn't any way that Colbert, and Mike Tomlin would be just praying that Tuitt is going to walk into the South Side in a few weeks and be in playing shape, right? While that information up above is the most we've gotten about Tuitt in a long there still wasn't a clear answer on what they know. What we do know is that the Steelers have salary cap, had more salary cap as they headed into free agency and they didn't bring in a defensive lineman.
Connecting the dots tells me that they know Tuitt is going to come into town in shape. It's impossible to know how rusty he's going to be, but it seems like they're betting on Tuitt being back to normal when he hits the field. Let's hope, cause they're going to need him to be at that level.
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