I made a comment in my Lions post game game notes that Steelers left tackle Tony Hills showed up on a bad ankle and played well at left tackle. If you judge the entire 28 or so snaps on tape from Saturday, you would grade it as ok or played well, too. The problem is that the further along in the game he played the lesser the competition and the better he played. Unfortunately though, that does not happen during a real NFL game. In the video below I analyzed his first 6 plays in the game. If you look at all six plays as a whole, you will see that really only the last play, the Isaac Redman touchdown run, was perhaps his shining moment of the selection. Hills was asked to block straight ahead and moved his man backwards. The other 5 plays you can judge for yourself, but in my opinion, Hills is still not cutting it. In the second preseason game, it will be telling who the Steelers bring in as the 2nd team left tackle when the starting unit exits. If it is Hills, I will be very surprised. If starting left tackle Max Starks were to go down to injury, I would rather see Flozell Adams move back to his natural left tackle spot and then worry about who would take over at right tackle once again. That is for another post though. Unless Hills makes a miracle improvement, I just can not see how he makes the 53 man roster this year.
