The Pittsburgh Steelers returned to the practice field Tuesday following taking Monday off in order to go to Dave & Busters for a team building exercise and absent from practice were safeties Troy Polamalu and Ryan Clark, according to Mark Kaboly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Twitter.
Polamalu was absent last week as he is speculated to be back home in California continuing his training. Clark missed the first day of practices last week but was reportedly present for the Wednesday and Thursday sessions.
While Kaboly doesn\’t say specifically, it appears as though cornerback Ike Taylor is back for the third and final week of OTA\’s after missing last week.
Rookie wide receiver Markus Wheaton is also still not attendance due to the fact Oregon State hasn\’t graduated yet. Head coach Mike Tomlin addressed the current status of the Steelers third-round draft pick during his Monday press conference.
“His report date is June 14,” said Tomlin. “He’s going to miss an opportunity to do a majority of things. I’m going to touch base with him at the latter part of this week and make plans in that regard. I haven’t done a lot of work in that area because we knew he’d be ineligible to participate. As we get closer to next week, we will get a hard sense of where he is and make the necessary arrangements.
“Just understand this: in the big scheme of things, (the impact) is going to be minimal. He’s going to get plenty of opportunities to show what he is capable of and prepare himself to be a part of our outfit and help us. We’ve dealt with this in the past, and really in the big scheme of things, it’s kind of been a non-issue. It creates some short-term discomfort, but these guys are professionals and are capable of dealing with it.”
