Pittsburgh Steelers General Manager Kevin Colbert said on Friday that rookie right guard David DeCastro would likely be carried on the 53 man roster for a little while and that the decision has not been made as to whether or not they will designate him as being the player for the new 8 week injured reserve list.
“The new rule will allow us to bring one person back from injured reserve once we put that person on injured reserve,” said Colbert. “And DeCastro may be a candidate for that, we\’re not decided at this point. Right now David will be carried on our active roster and we\’ll move forward from there.”
As far now it looks like Colbert is comfortable not rushing to judgment with using the one 8 week injured reserve spot on DeCastro and he has carved out a spot temporarily for him on the 53 man roster. Thanks to the versatility on the Steelers offensive line, the team will carry only 8 healthy linemen for the time being and are likely to dress just 7 on a game day per usual.
Leaving DeCastro on the 53 man roster to start, might not mean that they expect a quicker recovery time than they originally thought, as he is likely a good 10 weeks away from playing. This is just likely not a rush to use the 8 week injured reserve spot on DeCastro if they can carry him on the roster instead.
In case another injury strikes, they will still have the 8 week IR spot at their disposal for one of the two players.
