Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season is getting underway after the team finished above .500 but failing to make the postseason last year, we turn our attention to the next chapter of Steelers football and everything that entails. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on more specific contexts as we get into the season, reflecting more immediate plusses and minus rather than trends over long periods. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: C Kendrick Green
Stock Value: Down
Reasoning: After redeeming his standing with fans for his work at the fullback position, Kendrick Green performed poorly at the position he needs to play well in order to actually make the 53-man roster. The key to the more you can do is doing those things reasonably well, especially your main job.
Already firmly on the roster bubble entering this offseason—many beat writers expressed shock after every landmark on the calendar that he was still on the roster—third-year OL Kendrick Green’s chances of making the 53 in 2023 took a tumble faster than he did on Friday night.
The lowlight of his night was a three-play span in which he allowed pressure on the quarterback, followed by a holding penalty that negated a 16-yard run for RB Anthony McFarland Jr. On the third play in the sequence, he botched the snap, sending Mason Rudolph scrambling backwards to fall on the ball 12 yards behind the line of scrimmage.
Unfortunately, it does not appear as though Green has made meaningful progress along the offensive line over the past three summers. In spite of the fact that he started every game for which he was healthy during his rookie season, he did not play at all in 2022. Now it’s unlikely he’s even on the roster.
Former Steelers DL Chris Hoke was critical but fair in his remarks about Green Friday night. “It was one bad play after another and you can’t have plays like that, especially now that you’re a veteran, you’re a third-year guy”, he said on KDKA’s Nightly Sports Call. “Tonight he showed that he can’t be relied on”.
The experiment of Green playing snaps at fullback was only an effort to help him improve his chances of making the team as a backup offensive lineman. He has to prove worthy of consideration for that first and foremost as a lineman before any extra hats do any good for him.
He will need a pretty remarkable turnaround over the course of the next two weeks if he wishes to hold onto his job, because right now I’m not sure he would even be lineman number 10. Veteran T Le’Raven Clark probably adds more value at the point, as does rookie OL Spencer Anderson. And let’s not forget C Ryan McCollum.
If he continues to perform as he did on Friday during the final two preseason games, I don’t see the Steelers even considering offering him a spot on the practice squad, unless they fully commit to making him a fullback and want to give him time to make that conversion.
