The Pittsburgh Steelers first regular season game of 2019 will take place Sunday night against the New England Patriots and the team held their first official practice on Monday to start preparing for that contest. One player who has been dealing with an injury for most of the preseason was reportedly able to practice on Monday in some capacity and that’s great news.
According to Joe Rutter of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Monday, Steelers outside linebacker Olasunkanmi Adeniyi said he practiced earlier in the day. Adeniyi has been recovering the last several weeks from surgery to repair a meniscus tear. The former undrafted free agent out of Toledo missed the Steelers final three preseason games after playing in the opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Adeniyi returning to practice is probably a strong sign that he’ll open the 2019 regular season on the team’s 53-man roster and thus not be moved to the Reserve/Injured list. His meniscus repair was reportedly performed on August 16 and it was speculated at that time that he would need a two to four weeks of recovery time.
We’ll now have to wait and see if Adeniyi will ultimately be healthy enough to dress for the team’s Sunday night regular season opener against the Patriots. The team’s first official injury report will be released after Wednesday’s practice so maybe that might provide a little bit of clarity in regard to Adeniyi’s potential status for Sunday night.
The Steelers decide to keep five outside linebackers in total on their initial 53-man roster that was first established Saturday evening. That group of five players also includes starters T.J. Watt and Bud Dupree in addition to backups Anthony Chickillo and rookie Tuzar Skipper.
