The Pittsburgh Steelers have now put the wraps on their fourth training cap practice of 2018 and head coach Mike Tomlin confirmed afterwards that several players failed to finish the Sunday session because of various kinds of ailments.
“We had a number of guys go off with a variety of injuries or ailments today,” Tomlin said during his post-practice press conference. “We’ll have more information on those guys when we get it. JuJu [Smith-Schuster], Ola [Olasunkanmi Adeniyi] went down. Sean Davis wasn’t able to finish with a tight groin. T.J. Watt, tight hamstring. Vance McDonald, a foot. Don’t know the severity of any of these. Such is life this time of year.”
Tomlin went on to update the condition of guard Ramon Foster, who suffered a right knee injury during the team’s Saturday practice.
“It’s non-surgical,” Tomlin said. “We’ll see when he comes back, don’t want to frame it at this juncture. I’ll let you know when I get more definitive information there.”
Tomlin also said Sunday afternoon that safety Morgan Burnett continues to be out a number of days with a hamstring injury and that the hope is the team can get him back “sooner rather later.”
When asked what the nature of JuJu Smith-Schuster‘s injury is Tomlin said he doesn’t know.
“I don’t know, he’s being evaluated,” Tomlin said. “We’re probably going to exercise a little precaution. I don’t know, we’ll see.”
For what it’s worth, Alex Kozora and Tim Rice both spotted Smith-Schuster catching passes from quarterback Ben Roethlisberger after practice was over.
Obviously, we all hope none of these injuries are serious but it does sound like a few players are likely to start missing a few practices. It’s really discouraging to see tight end Vance McDonald already missing time with an injury due to him missing so many games last season with various ailments. Hopefully he’s back soon.
