A Pittsburgh Steelers starting offensive lineman suffered a significant injury for the second time since breaking training camp. First, LG Isaac Seumalo injured his pec, and though he avoided a full tear and season-ending injury, he’s missed the first three games of the regular season. Friday, rookie OT Troy Fautanu was lost for potentially the rest of the season due to a knee injury. So what happened? Are the Steelers slinging sledgehammers at practice?
Appearing on the Steelers Audio Network prior to Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette beat writer Gerry Dulac offered a piece of insight as to what happened.
“He injured his knee in practice on Friday,” Dulac said. “It was a non-contact injury. He was engaged with another player and injured his knee.”
It’s not a ton of information and doesn’t answer the exact nature of the injury or even which knee was hurt (he suffered a sprained MCL in his left knee in the preseason), but it offers a bit of context. Though there’s a clear contradiction between saying “non-contact” and being “engaged” with another player, Dulac presumably says no player impacted his knee. No player rolled into his knee and took him down. Fautanu likely stepped while making a block and hurt his knee that way.
Placed on injured reserve Saturday, Fautanu will miss at least the next four weeks. But it’s doubtful he’ll return to the field as soon as he’s eligible. In fact, it’ll be an upset if Fautanu takes another snap inside a stadium during his rookie season. As he noted yesterday, Dulac says the injury is severe, and the timetable to return is long.
“It looks like he is going to miss, if not all, of the regular season.”
Should this injury end his rookie year, Fautanu will have played 79 combined snaps between the preseason and regular season—a lost first year.
If there are silver linings, the fact the injury happened early should hopefully allow him to be available for OTAs and spring work next year. And former first-round pick David DeCastro started only three games in his rookie year due to a serious preseason knee injury. He returned healthy the following year and had a great career. Unfortunate as Fautanu’s injury is, there’s reason to believe the Steelers will still be happy with him as their first-round choice.
