The Pittsburgh Steelers second preseason game of 2018 will take place Thursday night on the road game against the Green Bay Packers. Prior to every preseason game this year I will spotlight one offensive and one defensive player that I believe should be focused on throughout the contest. However, none of the players that spotlight in this series will be draft picks of the team. Instead, I will focus on younger players who joined the team this year as rookie or first or second-year free agents.
The offensive player I chose to spotlight for the Steelers second preseason game against the Packers is rookie wide receiver Damoun Patterson.
Patterson, who played his last two seasons of college football at Youngstown State after transferring from Utah State, was signed by the Steelers after participating in the team’s annual rookie minicamp on a tryout basis. At his March pro day he reportedly measured in at 6004, 192-pounds and ran his 40-yard dash in 4.50-seconds.
A physical wide receiver in college, Patterson registered 54 total receptions for 1048 yards and 6 touchdowns in three seasons. He also registered a whopping 23 total tackles during his college career with most of them coming on special teams.
After a very good showing during the first few weeks of this year’s Steelers training camp, Patterson followed that up with nice NFL debut last Thursday night in the team’s preseason opener against the Philadelphia Eagles. He caught 6 passes for 77 yards and a touchdown on 10 total targets in that contest and played 49 total offensive snaps.
Patterson’s touchdown reception against the Eagles even wound up being listed as the top play of the week by NFL.com.
Patterson also played 12 special teams snaps against the Eagles in the preseason opener and was credited with an assisted tackle on a kickoff return.
Thursday night against the Packers, Patterson figures to get quite a bit of playing time once again on both offense and special teams and he should be on the field very quickly as the Steelers will want to see how he performs with and against better groups of players this week.
As of right now, Patterson has a very strong shot at making this year’s 53-man roster as either a fifth or sixth wide receiver and another good showing Thursday night against the Packers will certainly strengthen those chances even more.
