The Pittsburgh Steelers are out of Latrobe and back at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, also referred to as the South Side Facility. We are already into the regular season, where everything is magnified and, you know, actually counts. The team is working through the highs and lows and dramas that go through a typical Steelers season.
How are the rookies performing? What about the players that the team signed in free agency? Who is missing time with injuries, and when are they going to be back? What are the coaches saying about what they are going to do this season that might be different from how it was a year ago?
These are the sorts of questions among many others that we have been exploring on a daily basis and will continue to do so. Football has become a year-round pastime and there is always a question to be asked, though there is rarely a concrete answer, as I’ve learned in my years of doing this.
Question: Which tryout signing do you believe has the best chance to find some success in Pittsburgh?
The Steelers turned over a decent percentage of their roster yesterday, signing five players that they brought in on a tryout basis to rookie minicamp, in turn releasing five other players, many of whom were also in rookie minicamp.
As we’ve already covered, the two most notable names released were outside linebacker Keion Adams and offensive lineman R.J. Prince, the latter of whom were also in rookie minicamp, and both spent 2018 on the practice squad. Prince was a tryout player last year. Adams was a seventh-round pick in 2017.
There is one familiar name among the signees, that being defensive lineman Greg Gilmore. He is the second lineman brought back from last season, the other being Casey Sayles. Both of them played in the AAF last season and had some success.
Damian Prince is another notable name as he was college teammates and good friends with seventh-round pick Derwin Gray. The two of them were the bookend tackles for the Terrapins’ offense and senior leaders for the school. Now both of them are on the 90-man roster.
The other three new faces brought in were quarterback Devlin Hodges, outside linebacker Tuzar Skipper, and defensive lineman Henry Mondeaux. Skipper was a teammate of Olasunkanmi Adeniyi and Diontae Johnson at Toledo.
Hodges replaces Brogan Roback as the number four quarterback on the roster, and understandably has very little chance of making the roster given their commitments to the top three. Mondeaux and Gilmore replace Jay Hayes and Chris Nelson, a pair of defensive linemen signed after the draft.
