The Pittsburgh Steelers ended the 2019 season much as they did the 2018 season, by allowing their playoff fate slip out of their grasp. Slow starts and slow finishes permeated both campaigns, with strong runs in between. But while the results were the same missing the playoffs, the means were quite different.
Yet again, they find themselves undergoing the exit meeting process earlier than anticipated, which means so are we. But that they still managed to go 8-8 without Ben Roethlisberger, and with the general quality of play that they faced along the way, I suppose things could have been worse.
While we might not know all the details about what goes on between Head Coach Mike Tomlin and his players during these exit meetings, we do know how we would conduct those meetings if they were let up to us. So here are the Depot’s exit meetings for the Steelers’ roster following the 2018 season.
Player: Damian Prince
Position: T
Experience: 0 Years
When the Steelers dipped into the veteran offensive tackle well at Maryland, they didn’t just take one swig, but two. After drafting left tackle Derwin Gray in the seventh round, they also extended an invitation to the Terrapins’ other veteran starter on the right side, Damian Prince.
Prince tried out of the team during rookie minicamp, and he earned a spot on the 90-man roster from that, in doing so displacing R.J. Prince. The latter Prince was a 2018 undrafted free agent who was said to have fans in the building, and he spent that season on the practice squad. He has since then been with the Baltimore Ravens.
As for the former Prince, he did not have the same level of success. He did not make the 53-man roster, needless to say, nor did he earn a spot on the practice squad, though his former teammate, Gray, would spend the entire season in the latter section of the team.
Prince was at some point scheduled to be a part of the XFL draft, and was selected by the Los Angeles Wildcats. He would be waived in December, months before any games were played, and to the best of my knowledge, nobody else ever picked him up. Reportedly, he may have been a no-show (among others) to training camp, with the possibility that he decided not to pursue the XFL.
While with the Steelers, Prince saw playing time in three of the four preseason games, each game playing at left tackle, but that included as few as three snaps after one game. He logged the final 21 snaps of the final preseason game, and was waived shortly thereafter.
