The Pittsburgh Steelers made their initial 2018 roster cuts on Saturday and surprisingly, at least to me, safety Jordan Dangerfield was not among them. While I haven’t given Dangerfield the level of respect he deserves the last several seasons, the Steelers certainly have been and that’s all that really matters.
While Dangerfield making this year’s Steelers 53-man roster might somehow be related to an unspecified injury that new safety Morgan Burnett is currently be dealing with, it really doesn’t matter at this point. The team decided to keep five safeties initially this year and the former undrafted free agent out of Towson is one of them, and that speaks volumes to the respect they still have for him.
Technically, this now makes three years in a row that Dangerfield has made the Steelers initial 53-man roster. After spending the entire 2015 season on the Steelers practice squad, Dangerfield was quickly signed to a futures contract in January of 2016. He made the Steelers 53-man roster that season and dressed and played in all but two games on his way to registering 10 total defensive tackles and 6 more on special teams.
Last season, Dangerfield once again survived the Steelers final round of cuts. However, an ankle injury that he had suffered during the Steelers preseason finale against the Carolina Panthers resulted in him being waived injured ahead the team’s Week 1 game against the Cleveland Browns. After clearing waivers, Dangerfield reverted to the Steelers Reserve/Injured list and was promptly waived again a few days with an injury settlement.
This past October, the Steelers signed Dangerfield back to their practice squad and remained there the remainder of the 2017 season. This past January, the Steelers once again signed Dangerfield to a Reserve/Futures contract.
During the recent concluded preseason, Dangerfield saw action in all four games on his way to registering 9 total defensive tackles and 2 more on special teams, where he’s as reliable and accomplished as they come in that phase of the game. Additionally, with him now being part of the Steelers organization since 2014, it’s not hard to fathom that he knows the defensive playbook backwards and forwards by now.
We’ll have to wait and see what kind of roster shuffling takes place with the Steelers in the coming days to see if Dangerfield is one of the 53 active players the team takes to Cleveland to play the Browns. If he is, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody at this point. If, however, the Steelers decide to release Dangerfield in the next few days, he might be signed to the practice squad once again as he still has eligibility remaining. That is, of course, unless another team doesn’t first show him some respect by signing him to their 53-man roster.
I’d now like to end this post by apologizing to Dangerfield for not giving him the respect he so rightly deserves the last several years. I hope that he can forgive me.
