Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman James Daniels left the team’s Week 4 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the first quarter and did not return due to an ankle injury. Chris Adamski of TribLive reported that Daniels had a walking boot on his left ankle and was using crutches after the game.
While we don’t have much info beyond that, it’s not great news for Daniels. The Steelers are already down one starting offensive guard in Isaac Seumalo, although he may be able to return soon, but losing Daniels if he does miss time is a blow to the offensive line. He’s a leader for a young group, and up to this point has been pretty durable, although he did miss two games last season due to injury.
RB Cordarrelle Patterson also suffered an ankle injury in today’s game, and his status going forward is unknown. With Jaylen Warren also dealing with an injury, losing Patterson would hurt Pittsburgh’s backfield.
Spencer Anderson replaced Daniels today with rookie Mason McCormick starting at left guard, but it’ll be interesting to see if the Steelers turn to McCormick again if Daniels has to miss time. Either way, the bright side is that both McCormick and Anderson have starting experience this year, but neither is as good as Daniels. It’s going to be tough to replicate his production along the offensive line, and especially hard to replace his leadership and experience.
Daniels is the third offensive line starter to get hurt for the Steelers. Seumalo injured his pec before the start of the season, while Troy Fautanu suffered a knee injury that landed him on IR ahead of Week 3. Pittsburgh had a nice run of health on their offensive line, but that’s run out this season with their rash of injuries.
Today wasn’t the best game for Pittsburgh’s line, as they often got beat at the point of attack and the Colts completely overpowered Pittsburgh’s offense for the majority of the first half. Not having Daniels likely played a role in that, and hopefully when we learn the nature of the injury, it’s nothing too severe.
