The Pittsburgh Steelers will play the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday on the road and if you’re like me, you’re counting down the hours until the game begins. As usual, I will attempt to project the Steelers inactives for every game of the 2020 season and below is my best guess as to which players won’t be given helmets Sunday afternoon against the Jaguars.
Game inactives are officially announced 90 minutes before kickoff, so make sure you check back at that time to see the names of the players for both teams who will be sitting the game out. Also, the new roster rules make this exercise even harder as team’s can promote up to two players from their practice squads to their active roster on gamedays. Team’s also can dress up to 48 players for games if 8 offensive linemen are dressed.
QB Joshua Dobbs – Dobbs remains the third-string backup quarterback to starter Ben Roethlisberger and Mason Rudolph going into the team’s Week 11 game and that’s not a bit surprising. Barring any injuries, Dobbs is likely to remain the Steelers third quarterback the remainder of the season so that means he will likely remain a mainstay on the team’s game-day inactive list in 2020. Dobbs has already been inactive nine times this season and his tenth time should happen on Sunday against the Jaguars.
RB Trey Edmunds – Edmunds injured his hamstring in the Steelers week 10 win against the Cincinnati Bengals and after failing o practice all week, he was finally ruled out for the Week 11 road game against the Jaguars on the team’s injury report. Edmunds being inactive isn’t a huge deal as he’s played just a handful of offensive snaps to date. He’s also yet to make any real impact on special teams in the games that he’s dressed for. He’s essentially the 52nd or 53rd player on the Steelers roster right now and thus he might be waived at some point moving forward if the team needs a roster spot. For now, however, Edmunds will be on the Steelers inactive list for the first time this season on Sunday.
RB Jaylen Samuels – Samuels, who has dressed for every game this season so far, will be inactive on Sunday against the Jaguars after being officially ruled out for the Sunday afternoon road contest on the team’s Friday injury report. Samuels landed on the injury report this week because of a quadricep problem he sustained sometime during the team’s home game last Sunday against the Bengals. The injury prevented him from practicing all week. With Samuels and Edmunds both guaranteed to be inactive on Sunday in Jacksonville, rookie running back Anthony McFarland Jr. will get a helmet after sitting out the game last Sunday with an illness.
OLB Jayrone Elliott – Elliott, like Edmunds and Samuels, failed to practice all week and it resulted in him being officially ruled out for Sundays game against the Jaguars. Elliott is listed as having an illness. He has yet to play a defensive snap this season as he’s only been used as a special teams player and an emergency fifth outside linebacker.
DE Isaiah Buggs – The Steelers got defensive tackle Tyson Alualu back from his knee injury last Sunday against the Bengals and they activated defensive end Chris Wormley off IR on Saturday. Buggs, on the other hand, missed the Week 10 game last Sunday with an ankle injury and that resulted in rookie defensive tackle Carlos Davis dressing for a second consecutive game. Davis, by the way, has played well in his limited snaps in the last two games. With Buggs now presumably healthy, it will be interesting to see if he is chosen to sit out again this week in lieu of Davis. It seems like the decision will come down to one of the two sitting out on Sunday and I’ll guess that Buggs is the one chosen to be inactive. If that’s what ultimately happens, Buggs could wind up being a weekly inactive moving forward barring injuries on the defensive line.
