How quickly things change. Gerry Dulac reports that Pittsburgh Steelers nose tackle Casey Hampton said today that he will have surgery on Friday to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Hampton injured the knee early in the Steelers AFC Wild Card game against the Denver Broncos and all of the early reports suggested that Hampton would not need surgery. Defensive end Brett Keisel told DVE on Wednesday that he thought that Hampton would still not need surgery as well, but that of course was one player talking about another player. According to Dulac, this will be the third time Read more [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers right tackle Marcus Gilbert announced today on Twitter that he will undergo shoulder surgery Wednesday morning. Gilbert noted that he had been playing with the injury all season. It is unclear which shoulder Gilbert will need to get fixed at this time. Gilbert was the Steelers second-round pick out of Florida in the 2011 NFL draft and started 12 regular season games this past season at right tackle after starter Willie Colon went down week 1 against the Baltimore Ravens with a triceps injury. Gilbert played just over 900 snaps for the Steelers including the playoffs during Read more [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers rookie tackle Marcus Gilbert said tonight on a live Spreecast video chat that he was told by the coaching staff during his exit meetings that that there is a "strong possibility" that he will be flipped over to left tackle next season. Gilbert started 14 games at right tackle for the Steelers in 2011. This news is not very surprising considering that Willie Colon is expected to return from his triceps injury suffered week 1 against the Baltimore Ravens to be the Steelers starting right tackle. Colon signed a 5-year, $29 million dollar contract late last July and reportedly Read more [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers left tackle Max Starks announced via Twitter today that he will be having surgery next week presumably to repair a torn ACL in his right knee. Starks injured the knee late in the first half against the Denver Broncos in the AFC Wild Card game last week in Denver and was replaced the rest of the game by Jonathan Scott. Starks was re-signed by the Steelers after the week 4 loss to the Houston Texans and started the very next week against the Tennessee Titans. He started all 13 games since coming back on a one-year contract. Starks is scheduled to be an unrestricted free Read more [...]

Season 2, Episode 68 of The Terrible Podcast is up and with David Todd tied up in New York, Nick Richetta helps co-pilot the show today and I get the thoughts from Nick from the AFC Wild Card Game against the Denver Broncos from an offensive perspective to start things off with after we get through the latest headlines. Nick and I talk about the offensive line, running backs and wide receiver in addition and get to several questions from Twitter followers and emailers as well. Make sure to follow Nick on Twitter at @SteelerCityKid117 and if you want to buy him a cup of coffee, you can send him Read more [...]

Below are the offensive personnel packages, play counts and participation chart for the Pittsburgh Steelers Wild Card game loss on Sunday against the Denver Broncos. Running back Isaac Redman played 42 of 47 non-penalty plays that a running back was on the field with John Clay seeing just 5 snaps. Hines Ward saw all of 11 non-penalty snaps. Jonathan Scott finished up at left tackle for Max Starks after he went down with his ACL injury right before the first half ended. Package wise, 28 of the 68 non-penalty plays featured 2 or more tight ends on the field. 5 plays had no tight ends on the Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers 2011 season will be remembered as an injury plagued one and the offensive line certainly had their fair share of them. In the 17 games the Steelers played this past season they started 10 different line combinations due mostly to injuries as the table below shows. Offensive line coach Sean Kugler broke his personal best this year with starting line combinations as he used 9 different offensive line combinations in his final year with the Bills. Here is a rundown by game of the musical chairs on the offensive line. Week 1 - Against the Ravens the starting 5 left to Read more [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin met the media Monday for his season ending press conference and he talked about the game yesterday against the Denver Broncos, injuries suffered yesterday and various other talking points. Below is the audio of the press conference and I will continue to add recap notes and talking points over the next hour. [audio:http://www.steelersdepot.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/mike-tomlin-2011-2012 season-ending-press-conference.mp3] Tomlin opened up by saying he is still coming to grips with what happened last night in Denver and kind of how it unfolded. Read more [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin held his final press conference of the 2011 season on Monday to talk about the loss to the Denver Broncos yesterday and the season as a whole. Tomlin said the team suffered three significant injuries yesterday in the loss as left tackle Max Starks suffered an ACL knee injury of some sorts as did nose tackle Casey Hampton. Both are being reevaluated today to see if they will require surgery. In addition to both Starks and Hampton, defensive end Brett Keisel suffered a significant groin injury that might also require surgery and he is being looked Read more [...]

The questions are rolling in about the Pittsburgh Steelers 2012 free agents so I threw together a quick rundown of the restricted, unrestricted and exclusive rights free agents as the Steelers head into the offseason. The 6 restricted free agents will all certainly be tendered with only Mike Wallace receiving a first round tender. The other 5 will receive the lowest one year tenders. These amounts have not yet been released and I will post those amounts later in the offseason when they are made known. Both exclusive right free agents have no choice but to accept their tender offers and they can't Read more [...]

The week 17 offensive line breakdown report for the Pittsburgh Steelers win this past Sunday against the Cleveland Browns is now complete and overall it was a very solid game for the offensive line as everyone scored 90% or higher. The Browns really did not get that much consistent pressure on quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and there front 4 were very inconsistent at defending at the point of attack. Here are the scores and a recap of each lineman. TOTAL POSPLAYER PLAYSGOOD BADGOOD % SP H LGChris Kemoeatu 75714 95%.51 0 LTMax Starks 82775 94%02 1 Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Cleveland Browns Sunday to close out the regular season at 12-4. As I do every week, here are my deeper post game observations after going through the game tape a few more times. The sack by Lawrence Timmons on the Browns opening saw Timmons come on a delayed blitz and he took on fullback Owen Marecic. Marecic did not hold his block long and Timmons spun away back inside for the sack. Jason Worilds should get a little credit on the play for taking right tackle Artis Hicks up the field to open up the lane. Great tackle on Josh Cribbs by Keenan Lewis on the Read more [...]

The week 16 offensive line breakdown report for the Pittsburgh Steelers win this past Saturday against the St. Louis Rams is now complete and overall it was a pretty solid performance as everyone scored 86% or higher. The Rams run defense was pretty poor and the Steelers unit was able to push them around on quite a few plays and even get second level blocks on their linebackers, including James Laurinaitis. TOTAL POSPLAYER PLAYSGOOD BADGOOD % SP H RT/TEMarcus Gilbert 220 100%00 0 CDoug Legursky 220 100%00 0 C/LGTrai Essex 51465 90%01 0 Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the St. Louis Rams 27-0 Saturday at Heinz Field and improved their record to 11-4 on the season. I have made it back through the game again twice and here are my further observations from the game not included in the regular game recap. The opening stop of Rams running back Steven Jackson by Troy Polamalu, as he blew by the attempted block of wide receiver Danario Alexander, set the tone for the type of day he would have. Polamalu finished the game with 6 total tackles, second most on the team. he was all over the field Saturday. Ike Taylor would have had the Read more [...]

The week 15 offensive line breakdown report for the Pittsburgh Steelers loss Monday night against the San Francisco 49ers is now complete and overall it was not a good night as far as pass protection went up the middle and on the left side as quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had pass rushers on him quite a bit and not a lot of room to step up into the pocket with his lead bad ankle. The pass protection started off OK, but deteriorated, especially in the second half. The run blocking was adequate, just not great. TOTAL POSPLAYER PLAYSGOOD BADGOOD % SP H RGRamon Foster 71656 Read more [...]