The Pittsburgh Steelers have now released their first official injury report of Week 3 and the Wednesday offering includes great news for one player who has yet to see game action so far this season.
After missing the first two games of the season with a knee injury, guard David DeCastro (knee) is listed as a full practice participant on Wednesday. There is video on Twitter of DeCastro doing some drill work as well. We’ll now see how the rest of the week goes for DeCastro. If still unable to play on Sunday against the Houston Texans, rookie guard Kevin Dotson would start in his place once again.
The Steelers did have several other players listed as sitting out Wednesday’s practice. Not practicing on Wednesday were quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (not injury related), defensive tackle Tyson Alualu (knee), wide receiver Diontae Johnson (toe), center Maurkice Pouncey (not injury related), wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster (knee), defensive end Stephon Tuitt (not injury related), and defensive tackle Cameron Heyward (not injury related).
Those seven players not practicing on Wednesday isn’t a big surprise based on what head coach Mike Tomlin said on Tuesday.
“We’ll continue to manage some of the veteran players in the ways that we’ve managed them from a participation standpoint in the early portions of the week,” Tomlin said. “Some veteran guys, the cumulative effect of their careers, requires less physical preparation in an effort to be ready to play.”
As of right now, DeCastro would seem to be the only player in jeopardy of missing the team’s Sunday home game against the Texans and that’s only if he goes backwards on Thursday or Friday.
