The Pittsburgh Steelers will play the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday at Heinz Field and it figures to be a great game between the two AFC North teams who both enter the game with 1-0 records. As usual, I will attempt to project the seven inactives for Sunday’s game and below is my best guess as to which seven players won’t be given helmets Sunday afternoon.
Game inactives are officially announced 90 minutes before kickoff, so make sure you check back at that time to see the names of the players for both teams who will be sitting the game out.
Zach Mettenberger – Once again, Mettenberger figures to be the third quarterback on Sunday and thus will not dress for a second week in a row. Unless any injuries happen ahead of him, his name should be a fixture on the Steelers weekly inactive list moving forward.
Senquez Golson – Golson is still likely several weeks away from being able to resume practicing. The good news as it relates to his surgically repaired foot is that it should be out of the walking boot soon if that hasn’t already happened yet. Golson isn’t expected to be ready to play until after the Steelers by week.
Cody Wallace – After practicing fully on Wednesday, Wallace went in the wrong direction the remainder of the week which ended with him being ruled out for Sunday’s game after failing to practice on Friday. With Wallace out again, the Steelers will more than likely dress eight total offensive linemen once again and so that should mean helmets for Chris Hubbard and B.J. Finney.
Roosevelt Nix – Nix was unable to practice at all this past week and thus will miss a second consecutive game with a back injury. This injury has plagued Nix for several weeks now and thus that’s a little bit concerning. The Steelers could really use their fullback and special teams contributor back soon.
L.T. Walton – Being as the Steelers only normally dress five defensive linemen, Walton will likely be a healthy scratch again on Sunday and especially being as everyone ahead of him on the depth chart appears to be healthy. Walton was inactive for the Week 1 Monday night game as well.
Steven Johnson – Once again, I just can’t see the Steelers dressing all 10 linebackers on their 53-man roster against the Bengals and so that means one of them will likely need to sit. Last week I guessed Tyler Matakevich would be the odd man out and it wound up being Johnson instead. With that being the case, I am forced to guess it will be Johnson who is the healthy scratch again on Sunday.
Markus Wheaton – I have no clue how this last inactive will go and the fact that Wheaton ended the week listed as questionable certainly doesn’t help things out. While the Steelers could decide to sit Matakevich in addition to Johnson, I don’t think they’ll go that route. Additionally, I can’t see safety Jordan Dangerfield being sat down being as he’s a contributor on special teams. Being as Wheaton was limited on Friday, I’m going to guess that he’ll be inactive once again in order to give him extra time to heal his shoulder.
In short, I am predicting that the Steelers Sunday inactive list will match the one they had for the week 1 game.
