Pittsburgh Steelers CB Cory Trice Jr. had an unfortunate 2023 rookie season as he missed all of it due to a torn ACL suffered last year during the team’s training camp. With the team’s 2024 rookie minicamp now approaching, if you were hoping to see Trice back on the field again next weekend as a participant in that annual event, it sure doesn’t seem like the Purdue product will be eligible to do so.
According to a review of the NFL’s CBA, only rookies, first-year players, and up to five veteran players not currently under contract with a team are permitted to participate in a rookie minicamp. As far as the “first-year” player designation goes, specifically, that is limited to players under contract with a team that have failed to earn an NFL credited season to date. Trice, unfortunately, received a credited season in 2023 due to him being on the Steelers’ Reserve/Injured list last season. That should make him ineligible to participate in the Steelers’ rookie camp next weekend and that’s a shame.
While the rules are the rules in the CBA, this is one that probably should be looked at more thoroughly whenever the next rounds of negotiations take place. To be more specific, any player who misses his entire rookie season due to him spending it on a team’s Reserve/Injured list should be allowed to participate in the following season’s rookie minicamp if healthy enough to do so and still under contract with said team. It just doesn’t seem fair to exclude such players.
The last we left off with Trice, he was back on the field at the start of Phase One of the 2024 offseason program just a few weeks ago. Even so, we just don’t know for sure how far along he is at this point in his recovery of his 2023 torn ACL. In summation, we aren’t really sure if he would have even received full clearance to participate in the team’s upcoming 2024 rookie minicamp had he been deemed eligible to do so. At this point, it doesn’t seem like any of that matters at this point.
Assuming Trice is indeed ruled ineligible for the Steelers’ 2024 rookie minicamp, and it’s hard to imagine anything otherwise, his next opportunity to get back on the field will be at the start of the team’s OTA sessions, which begin on May 21. The hope is that he’ll receive full clearance to do just that.
The Steelers originally selected Trice in the seventh round of the 2023 NFL Draft out of Purdue. Despite testing really well throughout the 2023 pre-draft process, which included him posting an RAS score of 9.65, Trice allegedly fell to the seventh round of the draft due to medical concerns from his college career.
Trice’s torn ACL injury happened on August 1, just a few days into the start of the Steelers’ 2023 training camp. He underwent surgery to repair that injury not soon after that, so it’s now been roughly nine months since that all happened.
The Steelers 2024 rookie minicamp will be held on May 10-12 in Pittsburgh and at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. The full roster of players eligible to participate in this year’s rookie minicamp will be released late next week and it will include all seven members of the team’s 2024 draft class, the five undrafted players signed, and several other first-year and tryout invites, with a few of those being veteran players.
