During his Tuesday press conference, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin indicated that defensive end Stephon Tuitt might be able to return Sunday night for the team’s road game against the Detroit Lions after sitting out this past Sundays game against the Cincinnati Bengals with a back injury. Tuesday night, Tuitt updated the status of his back during his weekly interview on 970 ESPN in addition to revealing how his injury happened.
“So, basically, when you work out and you don’t do things the right way, things can happen and basically that Monday we was doing the workout schedule and we was going in, going hard and the next thing you know something happens,” Tuitt said about his back injury. “We wanted to make sure the inflammation calmed down in it. Once the inflammation had calmed down in it, we were like, are we ready to go?
“But with the injury that I had, there’s a lot more components in it that were causing it to not just be the inflammation. So, we had to take the week off just to make sure that everything is settled, and everything went in the right way. And then from there, I did my job in healing myself, getting ready to get back on the field in a short period of time and it’s a good talk to be able to say I’ll be back out here for the Detroit Lions and that’s the goal.”
Tuitt was then asked if he’ll be able to resume practicing on Wednesday.
“No, so to practice tomorrow, we’re probably going to practice by Thursday,” Tuitt said. “Wednesday we’re going to make sure we warm it up, get it going, get the flexion back in it and everything and then after that, Thursday we’ll get going because we don’t want to beat it up. There’s no point in beating it up.”
By the sound of things, we can probably expect Tuitt to be listed as a limited participant, at best, on the Steelers first injury report of Week 8. Thursday sounds like a key day for him and if he’s able to practice fully on that day, he’ll likely be ready to play Sunday night against the Lions in Detroit.
Tuitt has missed three games to injuries so far this season.
