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Monday, August 25, 2014

Monday news, notes

Ben Roethlisberger said today that he doesn't expect to play in Thursday night's preseason game against Carolina and that he's OK with where the offense is at, despite the team struggling last Thursday against Philadelphia.

Roethlisberger said the team only ran the no-huddle on its opening drive by design and that offensive coordinator Todd Haley gave him the option of doing it again later in the game but Roethlisberger declined because he didn't want to put anything on tape for future opponents to see.

He also said the team was moving Markus Wheaton and others around a lot and perhaps forcing things to them to see where they fit into the grand scheme of things.

@ Mike Tomlin said today that the team is considering its options in regard to discipline regarding running backs Le'Veon Bell and LeGarrette Blount and their run-in with the police last week for possession of pot.

Tomlin, who said a suspension wasn't off the table, also said that whatever the team does won't be made public. That seems to suggest that it won't be a team-mandated suspension.

@ By all appearances, there is nothing to be concerned about with linebacker Jason Worilds' knee.

Worilds left the game against Philadelphia on Thursday after taking a shot to his knee. But he appears to be OK.

@ The NFL's new practice squad rules have opened up a whole new group of players to being eligible to being placed on the 10-man practice squad this year.

Here are the players who now will also be practice squad eligible that would not have been before.

Mike Adams
Kelvin Beachum
Le’Veon Bell
Antwon Blake
David DeCastro
Terence Garvin
Robert Golden
Will Johnson
Jarvis Jones
David Paulson
Shamarko Thomas
Ross Ventrone
Markus Wheaton

Vince Williams

Obviously, many of those guys wouldn't be headed to the practice squad since many will be key members of this year's squad. But for a guy such as Ross Ventrone, for example, it's a big move.

3 comments:

Theosa said...

I guess the best thing that came out of Steelers camp and preseason so far is is there’s no major injury to any core players. I would say most fans are thinking another 8-8 season and it’s hard to get optimistic after last Thursday but OL seems to be better at pass protection. If the Steelers running game gets going and the offense carry the team the first half of the season, there is a chance this team can go 9-7 as the defense is going to be better in later half. That’s lots of ifs but we have seen defense coming together before, it can’t be worse than last year’s D. At the moment Bengals and Ravens are better teams than Steelers in the division, the former has the best defense so they will likely win the division again.

Anonymous said...

Tomlin probably will ban Bell and Blount from playing ping pong in the locker room

Dale Lolley said...

Ping pong table isn't set up. Nobody has really messed with them much since the 0-4 start last year.