Based on the way things have transpired over the course of this offseason, there’s a very good chance that Pittsburgh Steelers tackle Mike Adams has played his last meaningful snap with the team that drafted him in the second-round of the 2012 NFL Draft out of Ohio State.
For starters, Adams, who missed the entire 2015 season due to a back problem that required surgery just prior to the start of last year’s training camp, is now buried on the Steelers tackle depth chart behind Marcus Gilbert, Alejandro Villanueva and newcomer Ryan Harris, who the team signed to a two-year contract well over a week ago.
Depth chart aside, Adams’ back issue apparently still has his offseason status in limbo and Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert was asked about that very thing this past week while in Boca Raton, Florida for the annual league meetings.
“He’s progressing and we’ll see where he is,” Colbert said, according Bob Labriola. “The hard part is that right now you can’t mandate for those guys to do anything. So we’re just kind of waiting until we get our hands back on him when (the players) come back and start doing some of the physical work.”
That physical work, or at least when it comes to the on-the-field portion of it, won’t take place until the OTA practices get underway in a few more months. By then, one would think that Adams would be ready to participate in those sessions. Adams spent the entire 2015 season on the Steelers Reserve/PUP list after head coach Mike Tomlin said during his first training camp press conference that the tackle was expected to be sidelined for roughly around four weeks.
Being as Adams was in a contract year last season, his final year tolled this offseason due to him never being removed from the PUP list. During his first four years in the league, Adams has played in 41 total regular-season games of which he started 20 of them.
