During his Tuesday press conference, Mike Tomlin offered no new updates on two notable players on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ injured reserve list in OLB T.J. Watt and rookie WR Calvin Austin III. He went on to say their inclusion this week would be “highly unlikely.”
“Sone guys who are on IR like T.J. Watt and Calvin, I have no update as I sit here today,” Tomlin said via the team’s YouTube channel. “Their inclusion this week is highly unlikely so no news there.”
Watt has been out since Week 1 with a pec injury suffered late in the opening win against the Cincinnati Bengals. He also underwent knee surgery weeks ago, though it’s unclear how much that impacted his anticipated return. Without him, Pittsburgh’s pass rush has tanked. The team still has more sacks in Week 1 with Watt (seven) than they have in the six combined games without him (five). With just twelve sacks this season, Pittsburgh’s on pace for only 29 and are almost guaranteed to end their five-year streak of registering 50+ sacks. Watt has yet to be activated as a designated-to-return player this season.
Austin has been on IR since before the regular season began after suffering a foot injury during training camp. He’s yet to play in a game, even a preseason one, and his 21-day window to be activated off IR ends tomorrow after returning to practice October 5th. If not activated by Wednesday, he will have to spend the rest of his rookie year on injured reserve and won’t be eligible to return. Tomlin’s words weren’t definitive but don’t sound promising for Austin making any sort of impact in 2022.
“His overall readiness this weekend is probably not a high probability,” Tomlin said later of Austin. “And I’m just being straight-forward.”
Tomlin didn’t mention safety Damontae Kazee, who was designated-to-return last week. He’ll still have a couple more weeks to potentially return after suffering a wrist injury in the preseason finale.
Pittsburgh will travel to Philadelphia this weekend, and it sounds like Watt nor Austin will be available to help the Steelers try to save their season.
