Happy Friday to all of you once again and welcome to the first weekend of June.
The Pittsburgh Steelers wrapped up their second week of OTA practices on Thursday and that means there’s just four more allowed sessions prior to mandatory minicamp taking place. You can almost taste training camp at this point and especially being as the team released their Saint Vincent College schedule earlier in the week.
We’ve had several different nuggets to discuss this past week and one of those was the addition of former Tennessee Titans safety Daimion Stafford. It will be interesting to see if he can ultimately make the team’s 53-man roster this year and especially being as he has a nice special teams resume.
On a personal note, most of you already know the latest health news concerning my father. If you haven’t heard, he was informed Thursday by the doctors that he likely only has four months left to live as the cancer he had removed a few weeks ago is expected to return and be very aggressive when it does. If you will, please pray for a miracle.
I will likely be traveling back and forth to Florida several times during the next few months for obvious reasons and while away, Alex Kozora and Matthew Marczi will be running the site. Most of my away time will likely come in late June and the early part of July and that of course is the deadest part of the NFL offseason.
Ok, on to this week’s five questions and I hope several of you have some time to answer each one of them in the comments below.
Have a great weekend and thank you for visiting the site this past week.
Peace and love, peace and love!
1 – During his rookie year, Steelers defensive tackle Javon Hargrave played 492 regular season snaps and that was likely because the team lost defensive end Cameron Heyward early in the season to a pectoral injury. Assuming Hargrave’s recent OTA injury isn’t serious, will he play more than 400 defensive regular season snaps in 2017?
2 – While it’s still early in the offseason, do you believe Jerald Hawkins will eventually beat out Chris Hubbard for swing-tackle job by the time Week 1 arrives?
3 – Mathew had a great stats-related post on Steelers running back Knile Davis a few days ago. In your opinion, must he excel during the preseason as a kickoff returner to make the 53-man roster?
4 – Fill in the blanks: The single-best Steelers training camp battle this year will be between ______________ and ______________.
5 – True or false: Steelers safety Jordan Dangerfield will make the initial 53-man roster again this year.
Recap last week’s Friday night questions per David Orochena:
Question 1 – Lots of optimism in the Steelers defense at this point. Twenty-four respondents took the over on the Steelers’ outside linebackers getting 20 sacks. Only 12 took the under while 3 said it was a push. The popular opinion is that Bud Dupree is due for a breakout season.
Question 2 – An excitedly close call on which second-year player we are most excited about heading into the 2017 season. Artie Burns got 17 votes while Sean Davis got 18. Four people called it even. Let’s hope both players give the fanbase plenty of excitement this season.
Question 3 – We do not believe Joshua Dobbs will pass Landry Jones on the Steelers quarterback depth chart in 2017 by a decisive margin. The vote was 28-11 though several opined that it was just a matter of time.
Question 4 – Our responses ranged from the Steelers scoring 0-10 rushing touchdowns by someone other than Le’Veon Bell. Obviously, a big factor will be Bell’s health. The median response was 5 non-Bell rushing touchdowns. To compare; in 2016 Bell scored 7 of the 13 Steelers rushing touchdowns during the regular season. Of those, 4 were run in by DeAngelo Williams in games that Bell did not play. The others were Darrius Heyward-Bey’s sixty yard run in a losing effort to the Dolphins and a Ben Roethlisberger keeper.
Question 5 – Team Phazahn Odom over Team Scott Orndoff 23-10. Two naysayers said neither and one said both. It appears that the Odom backers like his size and potential upside as a project. The Orndoff people see him as a traditional blocking tight end. Good luck to both!
Bonus question – PaeperCup only one to call for a Penguins sweep! Though steelerfan13 saw the Penguins somehow winning in three games. The median response was that they would win it in 6 but 2 said no way Jose; Predators will spoil a Stanley Cup repeat. Penguins are up 2-0 despite the referees tilting the ice in favor of the catfish. Let’s Go Pens!
