The Pittsburgh Steelers reportedly had one of their draft picks go down injured during the team’s Monday practice and it was defensive tackle Javon Hargrave.
According to Mark Kaboly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Hargrave, this year’s third round draft pick out of South Carolina State, left practice with an apparent knee injury.
On the team’s initial depth chart that was released Monday morning, Hargrave was listed as the team’s starting nose tackle.
This would certainly be a huge blow if Hargrave were to be lost for an extended amount of time and especially if the team was planning on him being their starting nose tackle in their base 3-4 defense. Should Hargrave’s injury wind up sidelining him for the foreseeable future, Daniel McCullers would then be expected to start.
According to Chris Bradford of The Beaver County Times, McCullers said Hargrave indicated that he “felt a little tweak”, so we can only hope that’s the extent of the seriousness of the injury.
In addition to Hargrave’s latest injury, starting defensive end Cameron Heyward is also currently dealing with a high ankle sprain that he suffered during the team’s third preseason game. On top of that, backup defensive end Ricardo Mathews was unable to finish the team’s preseason finale because of a neck injury.
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin will address the media on Tuesday and at that time he’ll likely provide a full injury report.