The Pittsburgh Steelers will play the (0-10) Cleveland Browns Sunday on the road and they enter that contest with a 4-5 record and losers of their last four games. After a few transactions were made on Saturday, the Steelers are now left with three players who are guaranteed not to play on Sunday because of injuries. As usual, I will attempt to project the Steelers seven inactives for Sunday’s contest below.
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 – You can expect Mettenberger to be inactive once again against the Browns as there is no need to dress three quarterbacks with Ben Roethlisberger now recovered from his knee injury.
DeAngelo Williams – Williams will miss another game Sunday because of him having a procedure done on one of his knees a few weeks ago. On Saturday, the Steelers signed running back Daryl Richardson off the practice squad and he’ll now likely dress Sunday against the Browns.
Darrius Heyward-Bey – Like Williams, Heyward-Bey will also miss another game on Sunday. The veteran wide receiver still hasn’t fully recovered from the foot injury that he suffered a few weeks ago in the loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
Shamarko Thomas– Thomas will also be inactive on Sunday as he failed to practice this past week after suffering a groin injury in last Sunday’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys. This will mark the third game that Thomas has missed this season due to injury.
Brian Mihalik – The Steelers won’t need all 8 of their offensive linemen dressed Sunday against the Browns and that likely means that Mihalik will be one of the team’s seven inactives once again.
Xavier Grimble – Being as Grimble was limited on Friday and ended the week as questionable on the Steelers injury report, I’m going to guess that he’ll be inactive Sunday against the Browns. Now that fellow tight end Ladarius Green is back, there’s a good chance Grimble fails to dress for several more games the remainder of the season.
Justin Gilbert – It’s hard to guess which direction the Steelers will go with this final inactive spot and especially being as safety Jordan Dangerfield ended the week listed as questionable with a groin injury. The fact that Dangerfield practiced fully on Friday is encouraging, however, so I’m going to guess that he’ll be healthy enough to contribute on special teams. I chose Gilbert as he’s yet to find a true role on defense and special teams. He’s already been a healthy scratch before, so it won’t be shocking if it happens again on Sunday. We’ll see.
