We have several hours remaining before we know what the Pittsburgh Steelers initial 53-man roster will look like but with that said, one major media reporter said Friday night on Twitter that the team will keep five cornerbacks and presumably in addition to rookie cornerback Cameron Sutton, who re-aggravated a previous hamstring injury in the preseason finale.
Aditi Kinkhabwala of the NFL Network reports that the Steelers will keep Artie Burns, Joe Haden, William Gay and Mike Hilton on their 53-man roster in addition to one more healthy cornerback. She also indicated that the hamstring injury suffered Thursday night by Sutton against the Carolina Panthers appears to be a significant one.
“Cam Sutton is hurt fairly significantly,” she tweeted.
Kinkhabwala does not indicate if Sutton, the Steelers first of two third-round draft picks this year, will be placed on the Reserve/Injured list with hopes that he can be designated to return later in the season. Unless the rules have been altered, Sutton would need to be on the Steelers initial 53-man roster before being placed on Reserve/Injured so he can possibly be designated to return.
So who will the fifth cornerback be if Kinkhabwala’s report is correct? One can easily speculate it might be Coty Sensabaugh because of his position flexibility in addition to him being able to be a special teams contributor.
If indeed Sensabaugh winds up being the Steelers choice, Ross Cockrell will likely be released. If, however, the Steelers ultimately place Sutton on the Reserve/Injured list, the team could decide to re-sign Cockrell or rookie draft pick Brian Allen, assuming of course that he is waived and isn’t claimed by another team.
We’ll see how all of these plays out very soon and perhaps the most notable piece of information from Kinkhabwala Friday night is the fact that Sutton isn’t likely to be back on the field anytime soon.
