The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2021 offseason practices concluded last week. Next up for the team is their annual training camp, which should get underway in the latter part of July. Ahead of training camp, we will preview the team’s 90-man roster three players at a time for you as part of a 30-post series. This Steelers 90-man roster preview that includes outlooks for each player goes alphabetically by last name to make it easy to follow along with.
The next three players we will preview today are Devin Bush, Rico Bussey, and Kameron Canaday.
ILB Devin Bush — Bush, the team’s former first round draft pick out of Michigan, had his 2020 season cut short by a serious knee injury in Week 6. He registered 26 total tackles in the five games he played in and had a sack and two quarterback hits to go along with three passes defensed. Bush immediately had surgery in late October. That means he’s now exactly eight months removed from it. He participated some in the team’s OTA and minicamp practices, albeit on an extremely limited basis. The hope and plan is for Bush to be ready for the Steelers’ Week 1 game. Barring a setback in his rehab, it’s easy to fathom that happening.
Outlook: Bush is the quarterback of the Steelers defenses and the most athletic inside linebacker on the roster. The team needs him back healthy in 2021 and hopefully he can pick up where he left off in 2020. This is Bush’s third season, so he should now know the Steelers defense inside and out and become the ultimate communicator on top of it all. He figures to play around 1,000 snaps in 2021 and should be expected to be one of the team’s leading tacklers once the season ends. A lot should be expected from Bush in 2021. Hopefully he can live up to those expectations. This is a big season for him after missing most of the 2020 season with his knee injury.
WR Rico Bussey — Bussey was one of the Steelers’ undrafted free agents that the team signed a few months ago. In the four seasons Bussey played at North Texas from 2016 through 2019 he caught 128 passes for 1,941 yards and 21 touchdowns. In what should have been his senior year of 2019, Bussey suffered a season-ending injury in the third game. He transferred to Hawaii for the 2020 season and wound up catching 31 passes for 274 yards and a touchdown to close out his college career. At his pre-draft Pro Day, Bussey measured in at 6003, 186 pounds. He ran his 40-yard dash in 4.50 seconds and did 13 reps on the bench. His vertical jump was 38.5 inches, and his broad jump was 10’04”. He also posted times of 4.26 seconds and 7.21 seconds in the short shuttle and three-cone drill, respectively.
Outlook: The Steelers’ wide receiver room is loaded at the top and includes the likes of JuJu Smith-Schuster, Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool, James Washington, and Ray-Ray McCloud. In short, Bussey doesn’t have much of a chance at making the Steelers 53-man roster this summer barring multiple injuries. He might, however, have a decent shot at making the Steelers practice squad with a solid training camp and preseason. The Steelers are sure to keep one or two wide receivers on their practice squad this year and Bussey will be competing to nab one.
LS Kameron Canaday — Canaday has been the Steelers’ long snapper since 2017. For the most part, he’s never stuck out too much, which is a good thing. That said, the 2020 season may have been the worst one to date for Canaday with the Steelers from a long snapping standpoint as there seemed to be a higher volume of his snaps that were not perfectly on target and thus needed the help of holder Jordan Berry. Canaday did have two total tackles on special teams in 2020. That was a season-best for him.
Outlook: Barring an injury or a hugely dissentious training camp and preseason, Canaday figures to be the Steelers’ long snapper for the 2021 season. The only other long snapper currently on the Steelers roster at the time of this post is Christian Kuntz, and he has zero NFL experience. The Steelers have a history of sticking with long snappers for several seasons in a row. It looks like they’ll be stickling with Canaday for a fifth consecutive season in 2021.
Previous Posts In Series
90 In 30: Steelers 2021 Training Camp Preview Series: DeMarkus Acy, Marcus Allen, Tyson Alualu
90 In 30: Steelers 2021 Training Camp Preview Series: Abdullah Anderson, Kalen Ballage, Zach Banner
90 In 30: Steelers 2021 Training Camp Preview Series: Jordan Berry, Chris Boswell, Antoine Brooks Jr.
90 In 30: Steelers 2021 Training Camp Preview Series: Shakur Brown, Isaiah Buggs, Calvin Bundage
