Week 5 is of course a bye week for the Steelers, but it still counts as a week for injured players who started the season on the PUP list. Following the week 6 game against the Cleveland Browns, the 3 week clock will begin to tick on Steelers rookie tackle Chris Scott. The 2010 5th round pick had surgery on June 30th to repair a broken foot he suffered while working out at the University of Tennessee and was placed on PUP when training camp started. Scott missed all of training camp and not much has been mentioned about his recovery since. Former ESPN 1250 radio host, Chris Mack, informed us that he had begun running though.
When the 21 days begins, Scott can indeed begin practicing with the team to see where he is at physically. The Steelers currently have a full depth chart of linemen ahead of Scott, so I would fully expect the Steelers to use the full 3 weeks to decide if they will place Scott on injured reserve, leave him on reserve PUP for the remainder of the year, release him outright to try to get him to the practice squad or sign him to the active roster. The only way the last option happens is if the Steelers line gets ravaged by injuries otherwise, I see him either going on IR or staying on the reserve PUP list and basically red shirting.
Scott will be looked at hard and heavy next season at a tackle position and perhaps could be at worst a swing lineman as he has quite a bit of experience everywhere on the offensive line in college. Over the next few week news will certainly pick up on him, but I would not read too much into it other than he will hopefully be healthy and back working towards a 2011 debut at Latrobe.
