The Pittsburgh Steelers are now in Latrobe at Saint Vincent College, where they have held their training camp sessions since 1966. While the vast majority of the legwork of building the 90-man roster is done, there is always some fine tinkering to do. Now it’s time to figure out who is worthy of a roster spot, and what their role will be.
The team made some bold moves this offseason and in some areas of the roster look quite a bit different than they did a year ago. That would especially be the case at wide receiver and inside linebacker, where they’re bound to have new starters.
How will those position groups sort themselves out? How will the young players advance into their expected roles? Will the new coaches be up to the task? Who is looking good in practice? Who is sitting out due to injury?
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: How much time will Ben Roethlisberger miss?
Given that he is scheduled to have an MRI today, it’s pretty unlikely that there is going to be any late-breaking news coming out between the time I write this and the time it goes up. Roethlisberger left yesterday’s game with an elbow injury that may have been the result of prior inflammation he experienced during the week and did not return after halftime.
There appears to be concern about the extent of the injury, leading to assumptions that this could cost him time, possibly even multiple weeks. While he has missed some time within games, Roethlisberger has not missed a start due to injury since the 2017 season, when Landry Jones had to face the New England Patriots I believe in the first half of the year.
While he has suffered through five or more drops, he has only completed 35 of 62 passes through six quarters this year, throwing for 351 yards (just 5.7 yards per attempt) with zero touchdown passes versus one interception. He has been sacked twice, fumbling once, and he scrambled once for seven yards.
Last season, Roethlisberger completed 452 of 675 pass attempts for 5129 yards and 34 touchdowns to 16 interceptions, posting his highest quarterback rating since his career-best season in 2014. He signed a two-yard contract extension in the offseason that ties him to the team through 2021.
Mason Rudolph played in and completed the second half, throwing 19 passes and completing 12, at least one of which was dropped, directly leading to his lone interception. He also tossed touchdown passes of eight and three yards to Vance McDonald among the 112 total passing yards he had, in addition to a seven-yard scramble for a third-down conversion.
