On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh Steelers named their four protected practice squad platers for Week 2 of the 2021 season, and that list includes three of the four players the team protected in Week 1.
Protected this week on the Steelers’ practice squad are defensive back Karl Joseph, defensive lineman Henry Mondeaux, tight end Kevin Rader, and running back Jaylen Samuels. The Steelers essentially chose to replace Joseph with wide receiver Cody White this week. This means that these four players cannot be signed to another team’s roster until next week.
While the Steelers did protect the maximum four players last week, none of them were ultimately elevated to the team’s Active/Inactive roster ahead of the Week 1 Sunday road game. Many thought that Joseph would have been elevated or signed off the practice squad to the 53-man roster last weekend but that never happened.
It will now be interesting to see if any of the four protected this week wind up being elevated for the team’s Sunday home game against the Las Vegas Raiders. The Steelers will once again be able to dress 48 players on Sunday as long as they have eight offensive linemen in total active for that game.
Just like was the case in 2020, NFL teams Steelers are able to protect four players on their practice squad every week as part of the new rules designed to help out teams that might be dealing with COVID-19 issues. Players can only be elevated from a team’s active roster two times during a season with a safe return back to the practice squad after the game.
