Judging by the comments made by Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin during his Thursday press conference, I thought for sure we would see quite a bit of tight end Jamie McCoy during the Saturday night preseason opener against the New York Giants, but we wound up not seeing him at all.
According to Mark Kaboly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, McCoy had swelling in his right wrist and the decision was made to hold him out against the Giants.
This would explain why we saw newly-claimed tight end Michael Palmer early in the game. In fact, Palmer started as the Steelers opened the game with their 12 personnel grouping on the field.
The Steelers are really down to barebones at the tight position, so hopefully McCoy can return next week. As it stands right now, David Paulson and Palmer are the only two tight ends with regular season game experience that are healthy after Matt Spaeth went down Wednesday with a Lisfranc injury.
Spaeth has had his surgery, but Tomlin has yet to give a timetable as to when he is expected to turn. The initial report was 8-10 weeks, but that is not set in stone.
The Steelers will be watching the waiver wire very close over the course of the next few weeks and the return of Heath Miller just cant come quick enough.
