The Pittsburgh Steelers’ season ended a few weeks earlier that they had planned it to, but now that their 2015 campaign has drawn to a conclusion, it’s time to wrap things up and take stock of where they are and how they got there. Part of that process involves holding player exit meetings at the conclusion of each season.
Of course, we’re not privy to the specifics that go on in each of these meetings between head coach and player, and whomever else might be involved in any particular discussion, but if we were conducting them, it might go something like this.
Player: Doug Legursky
Position: Center
Experience: 8 Years
The Steelers originally signed Doug Legursky as an undrafted free agent in 2008. He spent that season on the practice squad before making the 53-man roster the following year, where he would spend the next four seasons. But the team allowed Legursky to go after that season, preferring to find depth elsewhere.
The veteran wound up with a starting job in Buffalo, but he was again not retained. In 2014, he found himself in San Diego, during which he spent four games on the roster, starting two games at center before he suffered a season-ending injury.
The recovery from that injury extended into the offseason, which could have factored into the fact that he was available to be signed when Maurkice Pouncey was injured, if not for the fact that he was a street free agent when he signed with the Chargers after the first game the year before.
In spite of the fact that Legursky had starting experience with the Steelers, and more experience overall than Cody Wallace, however, they didn’t bring him in to start at center, or even to compete with Wallace for the starting spot. He was purely a depth player.
Legursky even spent the early stretch of the 2015 season on the inactive list, with Chris Hubbard serving as the interior reserve lineman on game days, in spite of the fact that he had minimal experience playing center and had logged just seven snaps in garbage time in 2014, his first season on a 53-man roster.
When Hubbard became the top backup at all position due to injury, however, Legursky was consistently active, though he still didn’t see any playing time. In fact, the only snaps he saw during the regular season came just to take two knees to end a game as the team replaced some of their starters, including Wallace.
He did see one snap during the postseason, lined up as a fullback on the goal line in a package that the team ran during his early days in Pittsburgh, though he was about as much novelty as it was practical application after they lost their fullback—window dressing.
Legursky will turn 30 before the next season starts and Pouncey will be back, as will Wallace and Hubbard, among others. At the moment, it seems unlikely that he fits into their 2016 plans, and given his issues finding work the past two seasons, this may be it for him.
