According to Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin Tuesday during his press conference, it doesn’t sound as though tight end Matt Spaeth will be returning to practice this week and perhaps not even the following week.
“There is no update,” said Tomlin on Spaeth. “I hadn’t gotten the update from his evaluation today. I just have an evaluation from last week, so there wouldn’t be any changes in terms of what I said regarding his overall readiness last week. I’ll probably have another update a little later in the week in that regard.”
Spaeth, who suffered a Lisfranc injury during training camp, has yet to resume practicing and remains firmly planted on the Steelers injured reserve list with the designated to return tag.
Spaeth is eligible to return to action whenever deemed ready to do so, but once he returns to practice, the Steelers will then have a three week window in which he must be placed back on the 53 man roster or on season-ending injured reserve.
When Spaeth first went down injured on Aug. 9, the consensus seemed to be at that time that his recovery would take 8-10 weeks. On Friday, Spaeth will have been sidelined for 13 weeks.
