Season 2, Episode 63 of The Terrible Podcast is up and David Todd and I get right into the final injury report report of the week for the upcoming game this Sunday against the Cleveland Browns. Who is in, who is out? Who plays and for how long? We discuss it. We then move on to talk about the team awards announced on Thursday. Was Antonio Brown the right choice for team MVP? Do Ben Roethlisberger, Mike Wallace or Ike Taylor have a right to be slighted with the team vote? Who did Wallace vote for anyways? We hammer through all of that as well, plus have a few laughs in the process. In the second Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers face the San Francisco 49ers tonight at Candlestick Park as both teams look to move to 11-3 on the season. The Steelers control their own destiny as far as home field advantage goes throughout the playoffs thanks to the loss by the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans on Sunday. The pre-game inactives have been released and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is active tonight. The Steelers are also dressing three quarterbacks tonight so Dennis Dixon is dressed. The Steelers ruled three players out on the Saturday injury report and of course linebacker James Harrison has been Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers take on the San Francisco 49ers tonight at Candlestick Park as they look to move to 11-3 on the season and move a step closer to locking up the #1 seed in the AFC. The inactives this week are pretty easy to decipher with three players already ruled out on the Saturday injury report and one suspended for the week. There really is just one spot I think we have to make an educated guess on. As I do every week, here is the prediction of the 7 game inactives for tonight and a few notes on each of the players. The official list will be announced 90 minutes before kickoff. S Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers filled their two open spots on the practice squad Monday morning by signing defensive tackle Elisha Joseph and running back Chad Spann. The spots on the squad were created when the Steelers promoted linebacker Mortty Ivy and safety Da'Mon Cromartie-Smith to the 53 man roster on Thursday to fill the spots of nose tackle Chris Hoke and running back Jonathan Dwyer after they both were placed on injured reserve. This is the second time Joseph has been on the practice squad this season. He was last released on November 2nd. Spann is a running back out of Northern Illinois Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Cleveland Browns tonight at Heinz Field as week 14 in the NFL gets underway. The Steelers look to move to 10-3 on the season with a win tonight. The final injury report on Wednesday had 5 Steelers players listed as out and 1 as doubtful, but since then two of those 6 players have been placed on injured reserve in the form of nose tackle Chis Hoke and running back Jonathan Dwyer. Linebacker Mortty Ivy and safety Damon Cromartie-Smith were promoted from the practice to take the place of both Hoke and Dwyer on the roster and both will be active for the Steelers Read more [...]

The Steelers placed nose tackle Chris Hoke and running back Jonathan Dwyer on injured reserve today and promoted linebacker Mortty Ivy and safety Damon Cromartie-Smith from the practice squad to take their places on the 53 man roster. Hoke will undergo neck surgery next week after never recovering from his latest stinger suffered against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Dwyer suffered a foot injury of some kind against the Cincinnati Bengals last week. Ivy has been on and off the Steelers practice squad and active roster this season while Cromartie-Smith spent the entire 2010 season on the Steelers Read more [...]

As expected the Steelers also announced a practice squad move this morning as safety Damon Cromartie-Smith was released from the 8 man practice squad and running back Tristan Davis was signed to take his spot. The Steelers signing of Davis is due to the injuries to Rashard Mendenhall and Mewelde Moore. Mendenhall has a strained hamstring while Moore has a bad ankle. Davis will be used this week to emulate Titans running back Chris Johnson in practice. Cromartie-Smith had been originally signed by the Steelers as an undrafted free agent last season and he spent all of 2010 on the practice squad. Read more [...]

A day after the Steelers trimmed down the roster the 53 players they announced the 8 player practice squad signings as well as the team captains. The eight practice squad players signed were running back John Clay, wide receiver Tyler Grisham, tight end Jamie McCoy, tackle Trevis Turner, center John Malecki, linebacker Mortty Ivy, defensive end Corbin Bryant and safety Da'Mon Cromartie-Smith. Hines Ward and Ben Roethlisberger were named offensive co-captains, James Farrior was named the defensive captain and Arnaz Battle was named the special teams captain. The captains are selected through Read more [...]

Below are the individual coverage stats and totals from the Thursday night preseason game against the Carolina Panthers. The top table is by play and consist of which Panthers player was targeted with the pass, the yards gained on the play and the yards after the catch the receiver had on the play. Also included is the number of pass rushers the Steelers used on the play and if they blitzed or not on the play. I have included the down and distance as well as well as the direction of the pass. There were three plays not included as they were running back screens behind the line of scrimmage. Coverage Read more [...]

The final preseason game is now complete and now it is time to trim the roster down to 53 players for the final time this offseason. I have been all over the map in the previous versions of my final roster prediction and it is easy to understand why when you watch each preseason game 10 times each as you see new things every time through. It is easy to fall in love with certain players from game to game and it will cloud your judgment along the way. Enough with the setup, here is my final Steelers 2011 53 man roster prediction and the reasoning behind it. Heading into tonight several had Read more [...]

Every year heading into the final cut-down week fans are curious as to what players are eligible to be placed on the Steelers practice squad. In the new CBA the rule has not changed as far as the player eligibility goes. As always, every draft pick and undrafted free agent are eligible as these players are rookies. The biggest question always revolves around players that are not rookies that may have served time on a practice squad or have even made a 53 man roster for a short period of time. Below is the rule on practice squad eligibility and a list of the players that are currently on the bottom Read more [...]

The Steelers beat the Falcons 34-16 Saturday night at Heinz Field in their 3rd preseason game of 2011 and it is now that time again to dissect the roster and project the 53 man roster that will start the season. If you missed versions 1-3 of my 53 man roster prediction, you can view version 1, version 2 and version 3 at each of the links. The first change this week is at quarterback after Byron Leftwich broke his left arm on a meaningless scramble. It was a nasty injury and Leftwich will miss some considerable time by most reports. We may now never know if the Steelers were truly showcasing Read more [...]

Below is the defensive participation chart for the Steelers first preseason game Friday night versus the Redskins. Not much sticks out as far as a first preseason games go. Aaron Smith started over Ziggy Hood as expected and he saw more snaps than what I figured he would. Chris Carter spelled Jason Worilds at right outside linebacker while Worilds was getting coached up on the sidelines. I doubt Carter was scheduled to enter the game so soon. Ryan Mundy and Da'Mon Cromartie-Smith saw extensive action due to the shortage of safeties and the same went for cornerbacks Keenan Lewis and Donovan Warren Read more [...]

Below are the individual coverage stats and totals from the Friday night preseason game against the Washington Redskins. The top table is by play and consist of which Redskins player was targeted with the pass, the yards gained on the play and the yards after the catch the receiver had on the play. Also included is the number of pass rushers the Steelers used on the play and if they blitzed or not on the play. The bottom table shows the totals for each defensive player thrown at in coverage for the Steelers as well as the completion percentage and yards per attempt. Let me know if you find Read more [...]

Here we are three days into training camp and although there has not been much to report on, I figured I would take this time to give a few of my own thoughts of early camp happenings. I am not hopping on the John Clay bandwagon until I see him attempt to do the little things needed to contribute. There is plenty of film on him running through big holes and some more of him fumbling, but there is not much else. He looks like a one dimensional back right now and until I see that he can pick up a blitz or carry out assignments without the ball, I am with holding judgment. Of course if he picks up Read more [...]