Being as wide receiver Martavis Bryant will miss the entire 2016 season due to a suspension, the Pittsburgh Steelers figure to have quite a battle during the rest of their offseason when it comes to finding out which player will ultimately fill that spot on their 53-man roster.
While the team did draft former Houston wide receiver Demarcus Ayers in the seventh round this year, two of last year’s undrafted free agents, Eli Rogers and Shakim Phillips, will undoubtedly also be looking to make the final roster this year as the team’s No. 5 wide receiver and both have a great mentor in veteran Antonio Brown.
On Saturday, Rogers spent time catching some passes with Brown at his home and afterwards the veteran boosted the Louisville product’s ego on Twitter.
Like Ayers, the fact that Rogers has some history as a punt returner will certainly help his overall cause in making the team’s final 53-man roster this year out of training camp. Rogers, however, will need to stay healthy all offseason as well and that’s something he failed to do last year as a foot injury suffered early on in training camp forced him to spend his entire rookie season on the team’s Reserve/Injured list.
Now that he’s fully recovered from surgery, Rogers is back on the practice field attempting to pick up where he left off last year. If I were him, I would stick as close to Brown as I possibly could during the team’s off days and emulate everything that he does both on and off the field.
Brown and Rogers will be back on the field together again beginning Tuesday as that’s when the team’s second week of OTA practices will get underway.
