With the Pittsburgh Steelers Week 10 game against the Carolina Panthers scheduled for Thursday night the team was required to release and estimated injury/participation report on Monday afternoon even though they didn’t practice.
Monday’s estimated injury report pretty much matches the health rundown that head coach Mike Tomlin gave earlier in the day during his weekly press conference.
Had the Steelers practiced on Monday, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (finger), cornerback Joe Haden (not injury related), center Maurkice Pouncey and tackle Marcus Gilbert (knee) all would have likely sat the session out. Of that group of four players, Gilbert, who has missed the last two games with his knee injury, is the most questionable for Thursday night against the Panthers as Roethlisberger, Haden and Pouncey are all fine.
Estimated as possibly being limited in a Monday practice had one taken place were wide receiver James Washington (knee), wide receiver Ryan Switzer (ankle) and defensive tackle Daniel McCullers (ankle). On Monday, Tomlin mentioned all three players during his rundown of the injured but didn’t sound all that concerned about each’s possible status for Thursday night.
“All of those and others will continue to be monitored,” Tomlin said on Monday. “It may affect practice availability in some form of fashion, it may not. I’m just giving you a list of potential things. It’s just we hadn’t had our feet on the ground long enough to give you any real information, so I wouldn’t read too much into that. What you should read into is practice participation. That’s always our guide in terms of availability and it will be particularly on a week that’s as short as this one.”
The Steelers will conduct their first official practice of Week 10 on Tuesday and the injury report that follows that session should shed a little light on the possible Thursday night status of players such as Gilbert, Washington, Switzer and McCullers.
