Saturday, May 18th, 2013 at
8:23 pm
For the first three games of the 2012 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers were forced to start linebacker Chris Carter on the right side due to both James Harrison and Jason Worilds not being fully healthy. It was a golden opportunity for the 2011 fifth-round draft pick out of Fresno State, but unfortunately not one that he took good advantage of.
Carter, who received quite a bit of work during training camp last year as starter with Harrison and Worilds on the active PUP list, played 103 snaps in the Steelers first three games, but only managed to register 6 total tackles and never really threatened
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Saturday, May 18th, 2013 at
8:50 am
Pittsburgh Steelers running back Baron Batch is entering his third year in the league and with no guarantees that he will make the 53 man roster out of training camp later on this summer, he will have to prove that he can be more than just a special teams player.
Batch, the Steelers seventh-round draft pick in 2011, was forced to sit out his rookie year after suffering a torn ACL just prior to the first preseason game that year. He returned last offseason to make the Steelers 53 man roster primarily as a special teams player and emergency running back and wound up dressing for 12 games and playing
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Saturday, May 18th, 2013 at
8:15 am
By Christopher DiMarino
With the 2013 NFL draft now behind us, we are entering a stagnant time of waiting and over-analysis. Many are spiteful of this advanced look, but it's only natural given the amount of time, effort and excitement that goes into the draft. Sure players won't be battling for positions for a few more months, but those battles are all but set in stone. So, I decided to start taking advanced looks at the rosters and position battles that are generated from the draft.
While position battles league wide are important, I bet you're wondering why you should care. Well since I'm
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Friday, May 17th, 2013 at
9:48 pm
The first OTA session of the 2013 season for the Pittsburgh Steelers will get underway on Tuesday and only a few players are not expected to participate.
As far as injured players go, tight end Heath Miller (knee) and linebacker Sean Spence (knee) are both expected to be sidelined as they continue to rehab their knee injuries suffered last season. Neither are expected to practice in any of the Steelers OTA sessions or mini camp and both are also expected to open up training camp on the Active PUP list when the team assembles for training camp.
Tackle Marcus Gilbert (ankle), tackle Mike Adams
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Friday, May 17th, 2013 at
4:58 pm
2012 was a phenomenal year for Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Heath Miller, who registered 71 catches for 816 yards and 8 touchdowns, but when you go even deeper into his stats, you will find that the aforementioned stat line still doesn't do his Pro Bowl season justice, nor does it equate to him being ranked the 97th overall player on the Top 100 Players of 2013 list.
For starters, Miller caught 70.3% of the passes thrown to him in 2012 and that ranked him 6th overall among the tight ends that caught 30 or more passes last season.
Miller's team leading 368 yards gained after the catch in
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Friday, May 17th, 2013 at
10:45 am
Like most NFL players, Pittsburgh Steelers inside linebacker Larry Foote is very passionate about his alma mater and he recently gave an interview to Go Blue Wolverine to give his thoughts on Michigan and their upcoming season.
Foote, who made sure to voice his hate for Ohio State during the interview, was also asked to give his thoughts on the Steelers missing the playoffs in 2012 and what the team is doing this off-season to get back there in 2013.
"We’re pissed off we didn’t make the playoffs," said Foote. "On top of that, our rival won the Super Bowl. I know guys are taking it personally.
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Friday, May 17th, 2013 at
9:35 am
With Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Cameron Heyward now entering his third season in the league, many believe that he will open the 2013 season as a starter, but I wouldn't be so quick to bet on that happening.
Even though Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette posted this week in his online chat that he's been told Heyward is already better than starting left defensive end Ziggy Hood, and that he will be given an opportunity to unseat Hood in training camp, the fact remains that Heyward is probably best suited to play on the right side which is currently being manned by veteran Brett
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Thursday, May 16th, 2013 at
11:24 pm
The annual Top 100 Players of 2013 show that airs on the NFL Network revealed their Nos. 61-70 ranked players on Thursday night and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger surprisingly wound up in the No. 61 spot this year.
Last year, the 31 year-old Roethlisberger was ranked No. 30 overall in the rankings and fourth at his position behind only Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady. This year, however, 11 other quarterbacks will rank higher than Roethlisberger, who missed four games last season due to injuries suffered in the Week 10 game against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Despite
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Thursday, May 16th, 2013 at
6:51 pm
Quarterback Brian Hoyer is back in the AFC North again after signing a two-year deal with the Cleveland Browns on Thursday.
Hoyer, who released by the Arizona Cardinals on Monday, now figures to push both Brandon Weeden and Jason Campbell hard in training camp. It should be noted that Hoyer received some guaranteed money in his deal, so that is likely a sign that the Browns intend on keeping him around in 2013.
Hoyer spent most of the 2012 season unemployed following his late August release from the New England Patriots, but wound up being signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers in late November
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Thursday, May 16th, 2013 at
3:31 pm
There certainly is a whole lot of edification going on down in South Beach these days as new Miami Dolphins wide receiver, and former member of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Wallace has recently stated that his new quarterback Ryan Tannehill will be “great.”
"Ryan can really fling it," Wallace said, via a report by Chris Perkins in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "I think from a deep ball perspective Ryan may be able to throw the ball a little bit farther than Ben Roethlisberger.
"Obviously, Ben is more experienced in a game-time situation, but the way it's going it won't take long for
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Thursday, May 16th, 2013 at
12:55 pm
Season 3, Episode 103 of The Terrible Podcast is up and co-host David Todd and I are all over the place on Thursday as we discuss the signing of Pittsburgh Steelers fourth-round draft pick Shamarko Thomas for starters. General manager Kevin Colbert updated the rehab progress of linebacker Sean Spence during his conference call with season ticket holders this week, so we pass along that news to you along with the comments that he made about undrafted free agent wide receiver Reggie Dunn.
J.D. Woods is another undrafted wide receiver that the Steelers signed to compete at training camp for
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Thursday, May 16th, 2013 at
9:50 am
The Pittsburgh Steelers now have one of their nine 2013 draft picks under contract as it was announced on Thursday morning that fourth-round safety Shamarko Thomas has come to terms.
The four year contract signed by Thomas will total out at just shy of $2.7 million and will include a signing bonus of a little more than $450,000. The base salaries for each of the years are as follows: $405,000, $495,000, $585,000, and $675,000.
Thomas will have a 2013 cap hit of around $518,300.
The Steelers traded a 2014 third round draft pick to the Cleveland Browns to get into the fourth round to select
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Thursday, May 16th, 2013 at
9:19 am
Pittsburgh Steelers undrafted wide receiver J.D. Woods caught 61 passes for 637 yards and four touchdowns in 2012, but being as he played his college football at West Virginia, that was only good enough to rank him third on the team in receptions behind Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey, both of whom caught 114 passes last season. In other words, Woods was just "that other West Virginia wide receiver" heading into the 2013 NFL draft.
Despite only having 61 receptions, Woods still had 15 more than Tennessee wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson, who was drafted 29th overall in the first round last
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Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 at
9:50 pm
Did it seem as though that the Baltimore Ravens wide receivers drew a ton of penalty flags last season? Well, according to a recent post by Pro Football Focus, Ravens wide receiver Torrey Smith drew the highest number of flags in 2012 with 16 and fellow wide receiver Jacoby Jones drew an additional seven. If you are scoring at home, that's 23 combined flags drawn by just those two Ravens receivers.
Now, we don't know exact breakdown of each penalty that both Smith and Jones drew last season, but we can guess that it included pass interference, defensive holding, illegal contact and unnecessary
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Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 at
4:45 pm
The Pittsburgh Steelers have predominantly been a heavy right handed running team over the course of the last several season, but in 2012 they were extremely right handed and really just a team that ran between the two guards.
If you look at the table below, which runs from the left side to the right side, you will see that only 4% of all combined rushes went off left end and that only 7% of all rushes went to left tackle.
To better illustrate the numbers, 71% of all of the Steelers runs last year went between the two guards and that was easily the highest percentage off all teams in 2012.
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Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 at
1:57 pm
During the regular season, I write quite a bit about explosive plays of 20 yards or more as it relates to teams winning and losing games, but I have wanted to look at big plays produced by all of the teams running backs and fullbacks for some time now.
The stats below reflect plays produced by running backs and fullbacks by team in 2012 that went for 10 yards or more and these are also broken down by rushes and receptions. These should by no means be considered official, but they should be very, very close.
As you can see, the New England Patriots were tops in the league last season with
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Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 at
8:22 am
The Pittsburgh Steelers addressed their depth concerns at the defensive end position in the 2013 NFL draft with their selection of Samford defensive tackle Nick Williams in the seventh round. In addition to that, they also signed undrafted free agent defensive ends Brian Arnfelt and Cordian Hagans following the draft.
During the post selection press conference of Williams, Steelers defensive line coach John Mitchell let it be known that the defensive tackle will be converted to defensive end and thus will be considered a project initially. With that bit of information being given, the Steelers
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Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 at
10:17 pm
Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert held a conference call for season ticket holders on Tuesday and during the session he was asked to give his thoughts on Reggie Dunn, the undrafted free agent kick returner extraordinaire out of Utah.
"He is an exciting player. He ran in the 4.3s on his pro day," said Colbert. "Reggie didn’t have a lot of production as a receiver or a runner, but on kick returns – I believe without checking – he had 10 kickoff returns and four of those were for touchdowns.
"He isn’t the biggest guy. He is extremely fast. We know what he can do as a
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Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 at
5:56 pm
A week ago we reported that former Michigan State nose tackle Anthony Rashad White reverted back to the Pittsburgh Steelers injured reserve list following him clearing waivers after being waived injured on May 6. On Tuesday, White was waived from the injured reserve list which means that he is fully recovered from whatever injury he may have had.
White was signed as an undrafted free agent immediately following the 2013 NFL draft, but according to Bob Labriola of steelers.com, the 335 pound nose tackle showed up to the Steelers rookie camp extremely out of shape.
We have yet to find out exactly
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Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 at
5:32 pm
Cincinnati Bengals linebacker James Harrison, who was released by the Pittsburgh Steelers back in early March after failing to agree to a reduction in salary, held his introductory press conference with the Cincinnati media on Tuesday and admitted during it that he is motivated to play his former team this season.
"I understand it’s a business, so it’s not like I can really take it personally," said Harrison, when asked about his motivation following his offseason dismissal from the Steelers. "But to say that it doesn’t motivate me in some sense would be a lie."
While Harrison might
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