Pittsburgh Steelers OT Troy Fautanu showed off his toughness in the team’s preseason opener, playing through a knee sprain that he suffered in the first quarter. While it wasn’t known exactly when Fautanu suffered the injury, he told reporters that he hurt his knee at the end of the first quarter and played through it, but at halftime was when he realized something was actually wrong with his knee.
“I was not gonna stop playing, I was like, I barely got my feet wet, decided to keep playing in the second quarter. Told them to throw some tiger balm on it, and just kept going. Come halftime and when we were down the stairs to get to the locker room, my leg felt like, oh something’s off here,” Fautanu said via Chris Adamski of TribLive on Twitter.
He said he went to get the knee brace at halftime because he wanted to “make up for” what happened in the first half, and now he’s just focused on attacking rehab.
Fautanu should be ready for Week 1, and he avoided a major injury with just a mild MCL sprain, although it did force him to miss Pittsburgh’s second preseason game against the Buffalo Bills. Fautanu is reportedly going to start at right tackle for the Steelers, although he had an up-and-down debut, though the injury could’ve played a part in that, and that’s likely what he was referring to when he said he wanted to get back on the field to make up for what happened, as he played a hand in allowing one sack and he also allowed two pressures in his 25 snaps.
With Fautanu expected to be ready for the opener, it leaves Pittsburgh’s left tackle spot up in the air between Dan Moore Jr. and Broderick Jones, who really struggled in the game against Buffalo. But hopefully, Fautanu can provide a boost to an offensive line that hasn’t looked great so far in the preseason.
You want a bunch of tough guys up front, and Fautanu showed off his toughness by playing through the injury. Obviously, there are times where doing so can be damaging and cause an injury to get worse, but that luckily doesn’t sound like the case in this instance. You like seeing a rookie who wants to work for every snap and play as much as possible, and that toughness and hunger for the game should serve Fautanu well throughout his career.
We might not see Fautanu in the preseason finale on Saturday against the Detroit Lions, but we should see him against the Falcons if he does indeed start Week 1, and
