It doesn’t seem likely—even less so, reasonable—for third-year veteran Kendrick Green to enter the 2023 season as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ reserve center. Indeed, the odds of him even being on the roster are dwindling, though he remains in the running.
The problem with playing the center position specifically is that one lowlight can be damning. There is simply one job that you must do very well every time, and that is snapping the ball accurately back to the quarterback.
That is the one thing he failed to do on Saturday night against the Buffalo Bills. It was just one snap out of 54, but it immediately became the most significant as the ball sailed to the right of QB Mason Rudolph, the second time the duo had a busted snap exchange—the second time Rudolph had to scramble backward to try to retrieve the ball.
This time he did not, the Bills recovering near the Steelers’ goal line and quickly finding the end zone thereafter. It may have been a meaningless game with the score well in hand by the time that occurred, but they cannot afford that to happen in a game that matters.
Of course, it is going to happen from time to time for anybody. Former Steelers C Maurkice Pouncey actually was not the greatest at the snap exchange, either, and that reared its ugly head to dire effect in the 2020 postseason. He snapped the first ball of the game over QB Ben Roethlisberger’s head, the Cleveland Browns recovering for a touchdown. The Steelers never recovered.
Outside of that bad exchange, Green looked a lot better in the second preseason game than in the first, in which he was basically awful. That came after a strong final week of practices during training camp, with Alex Kozora noting that he had plenty of wins in one-on-one blocking drills.
With crunch time coming and his roster spot very much in jeopardy, the Steelers seem to have discouraged experimentations with the fullback position, but they need to get serious about center. More specifically, they need to figure out who their backup center is going to be, because it should not be Green.
Will it be Nate Herbig, who is currently dealing with a shoulder injury? He has even less experience playing center than does Green, but he seems to be their more reasonable in-house option. There is also rookie Spencer Anderson, who has been playing an increasing amount at center.
This is going to be a position to watch for during roster cuts. The Steelers added an offensive lineman at the 11th hour a year ago, acquiring Jesse Davis via trade and releasing Joe Haeg. Given this offseason’s roster-building approach, we certainly cannot look past general manager Omar Khan finding another center before the start of the regular season. That might be what we must hope for at this point.
