As things stand right now, the Pittsburgh Steelers will start their 2016 regular season with injured second-year cornerback Senquez Golson safely tucked away on their 53-man roster as he continues to recover from the surgery that he had on his foot as a result of him suffering a Lisfranc injury during the early stages of training camp. During his Tuesday press conference, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was asked if Golson’s current spot on the team’s 53-man roster is a fluid situation being as the team might wind up needing it should future injuries to other players occur.
“Obviously he’s still on the team so we can characterize his availability as week-to-week and we’ll continue to characterize it as that,” said Tomlin. “If something comes up where we have to make a decision, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but were optimistic about his ability to be available to us here at some point.”
On Monday, Golson let it be known that he plans on being able to ditch the walking boot on his surgically repaired foot in two weeks. If that ultimately comes to fruition, perhaps he might be able to resume practicing again in another four to six weeks with the hopes of finally making his NFL debut in some capacity after the team’s bye week, which is Week 8 this year.
Assuming Golson is ready to play at some point during the 2016 season, what can we reasonably expect from him as a contributor being as he’s missed so much practice time over the course of his first two years in the league?
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Tomlin said Tuesday when asked that very question. “I’m not overly concerned about that right now. I tend to focus on the things that are in front of us and the men that are available to me as we sit here. You can waste a lot of time speculating and being concerned about guys that aren’t available and him being characterized as week-to-week, he’s not available this week, so haven’t spent a lot of time pondering those type things.”
As I wrote earlier on Tuesday, the Steelers current 53-man roster should be able to accommodate Golson for the time being as several other younger backups on the team are potential candidates to be waived and then signed to the team’s practice squad should future injuries warrant other players needing to be added.
As a whole, Tomlin sounds very optimistic that Golson will finally be able to play at some point during the 2016 season so we’ll have to just sit back and wait and see if that’s ultimately the case. In the meantime, however, you can go ahead and pencil in Golson as one of the team’s seven weekly inactive players for the immediate future as he’s certainly still several weeks away from being cleared to resume practicing.
