Ahead of the regular-season opener Sept. 8 in Atlanta, the Pittsburgh Steelers are starting to get healthy on the offensive side of the football.
Following Wednesday’s practice at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex on the South Side, rookie offensive tackle Troy Fautanu and veteran running back Jaylen Warren both told reporters that they’ll return to practice Monday, according to a pair of tweets from 93.7 The Fan.
Fautanu suffered an MCL injury in the preseason opener against the Houston Texans after playing 25 snaps in the first half at right tackle. It’s unclear when the injury occurred, but the Steelers didn’t even know Fautanu was injured until he asked for a knee brace at halftime of the 20-12 loss to the Texans.
Fautanu was expected to miss roughly two weeks while recovering from the injury. Those two weeks are up this week, so it makes sense that Fautanu gets back to practicing to try and get up to speed for the season opener.
Previously, the expectation — at least from reporting by the Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac — was that Fautanu would be the Steelers’ starting RT against the Falcons inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium. But ahead of the preseason finale against the Detroit Lions, Dulac walked that back a bit and said that the injury might hinder Fautanu, causing him to potentially not be the starter at right tackle.
Second-year left tackle Broderick Jones still doesn’t know where he’s going to line up in Week 1, either, due to Fautanu’s injury. If Fautanu returns to the lineup, Jones presumably flips to left tackle. If not, Dan Moore Jr. should remain at left tackle and Jones would stay at right tackle for at least the first week.
Getting Fautanu back into a practice setting is a positive step. Even with missing two weeks and two preseason games, he should be able to get up to speed and get back into the lineup, solidifying the Steelers’ offensive line in the process.
As for Warren, since suffering the hamstring injury against the Buffalo Bills in the second preseason game, he’s made it clear that he’s not going to miss any time and would be on the field for the season-opener against the Falcons.
Warren is expected to be a major part of the Steelers’ new-look offense under coordinator Arthur Smith. Potentially getting him back into the fold for practice on Monday for a full week would be a huge boost to the Steelers entering the 2024 season.
