The Pittsburgh Steelers will play the (5-5) Indianapolis Colts Thursday night on the road and they enter that contest with an identical 5-5 record after breaking their four-game losing streak on Sunday. The team’s injury report shows that four players will miss the game against the Colts due to injuries and that once again helps narrow down the seven inactives for their Week 12 game. As usual, I will attempt to project the Steelers seven inactives for Thursday night 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 – Mettenberger can eat as much turkey and dressing that he wants on Thursday as he doesn’t have to worry about fitting into his uniform later in the evening. While he has dressed for a few games this season due to injuries to starter Ben Roethlisberger and others, he’s yet to play a single snap.
DeAngelo Williams – Williams will miss yet another game Thursday as he is still recovering from the minor knee surgery that he had a few weeks ago. This will mark the fourth game this season that Williams has been inactive and the hope is that he’ll be able to resume practicing next week after the Steelers mini bye. In the meantime, running back Daryl Richardson might dress Thursday night. He was signed off the practice squad this past Saturday but failed to see the field Sunday on special teams.
Darrius Heyward-Bey – Like Williams, Heyward-Bey was also ruled out for the game against the Colts on Wednesday. Heyward-Bey hasn’t played since injuring his foot in Week 9 so this will make three straight games that he has missed. It will be interesting to see if he’s able to resume practicing next week.
Shamarko Thomas – Thomas is still dealing with the groin injury that he suffered a few weeks ago and was ruled out on the Wednesday injury report. While he is normally a strong contributor on special teams when active, the Steelers really haven’t missed him being on the field the last few weeks.
Brian Mihalik – Barring any kind of injuries occurring on the Steelers offensive line, Mihalik isn’t likely to dress for another game anytime soon. As of right now, Chris Hubbard and B.J. Finney remain the Steelers backup linemen on gamedays.
Xavier Grimble – A quadricep injury will once again prevent Grimble from suiting up this week as he was officially ruled out for Thursday night’s game on the team’s Wednesday injury report. With fellow tight end Ladarius Green now back, Grimble might just become a regular on the weekly inactive list even when he gets himself healthy.
Jordan Dangerfield – Dangerfield ended the short week listed as questionable with a groin injury but apparently did practice fully on Wednesday. Is that one day enough? I tend to doubt it so I expect hill be down once again this week. If Dangerfield is active Thursday night, maybe Richardson will be the seventh inactive as he didn’t play any last week.
