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 president Art Rooney II sat down with a few members of the Pittsburgh media on Tuesday for a half hour interview to discuss the Steelers past season and look ahead to 2012. You can read the question and answers here on the Post-Gazette blog. When you read through everything there were not too many surprises if you ask me, but I will go over the main talking points below with my own comments and view points added to a few of the things that Rooney said. Even though we do not usually learn too much from these interviews every offseason, it is just good to hear some of the things Read more [...]

Ed Bouchette reported today on 93.7 The Fan that Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall has had his surgery now on the torn ACL in his right knee. Mendenhall injured the knee on the final play of the first quarter in the week 17 game against the Cleveland Browns in Cleveland on a 5 yard run to the right side. Reportedly they were waiting on the swelling to go down on the knee before Mendenhall had his surgery, as expected. The hope is that Mendenhall will be ready for action when the Steelers report to Latrobe for their 2012 training camp. The injury can however take up to 9 months Read more [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers president and co-owner Art Rooney II talked to the Pittsburgh media today and beat writers Ed Bouchette, Scott Brown and Mike Bires are all relaying the conversation via Twitter for us and I will recap those Tweets below. Rooney II said today that his father Dan Rooney to step down as the Irish Ambassador and rejoin the team in 2012. He also told the reporters that they will add 3,000 seats to Heinz Field after the 2012 season. As far as potential moves go during the offseason, Rooney II called wide receiver Hines Ward an "all-time" Steelers great and hopefully a future Read more [...]

By Jeremy Hritz Before the 2011 Steelers season even began, a gaggle of random acts of immaturity unrelated to anything on the playing field raised serious reasons for concern. LaMarr Woodley ran off at the mouth on the NFL Network that Joe Flacco would not win a Super Bowl “in his lifetime;” Rashard Mendenhall foolishly shared an insensitive personal perspective about 9-11 on Twitter; James Harrison bashed his teammates in Men's Journal, not to mention Roger Goodell, who honestly, probably deserves some of it for his crusade to sissify a man’s game. Throw in the revered veteran Hines Read more [...]

As Ed Bouchette reported this morning, veteran Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward has made it clear he wants to come back in 2012 and he is willing to take a pay cut to do so. Ward seems dead set on playing next year and he also made it clear that he will do so elsewhere if the Steelers choose not to bring him back. According to Bouchette, Ward has a clause in his contract that states they must either guarantee his job by March 1st then or release him. There are also reports he has a $1 million roster bonus due at that time, but my records do not match that report. It could be true 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 Pittsburgh Steelers saw their 2011 season come to an abrupt end Sunday in Denver with 29-23 overtime loss to the Denver Broncos in the AFC Wild Card game. Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow hit wide receiver Demaryius Thomas on the first play in overtime for a game-winning 80-yard touchdown pass to give the Broncos the win. Tebow had 316 passing yards and two touchdowns in the game and the Broncos now advance to play the New England Patriots in a divisional playoff game Saturday night in Foxboro. The Broncos finished with 447 total yards against the Steelers No. 1 defense that allowed an average Read more [...]

The playoffs begin today for the Pittsburgh Steelers as they take on the Denver Broncos in the 2nd AFC Wild Card game of the weekend in Denver. With a win, the Steelers will move on to face the New England Patriots next Saturday. As I have done each and every week this season, here are my 7 things to look for against the Broncos. Also included is my score prediction for the game. Seeing Red - Isaac Redman will make his second career start at running back now that Rashard Mendenhall was lost for the season last week with a torn ACL in his right knee. His first start came back in week 5 against Read more [...]

Maurkice Pouncey and Jerricho Cotchery were both interviewed on 93.7 The Fan and Pouncey made it very clear several times that he is very tired answering questions about Tim Tebow and that he does not date Tebow. Cotchery talks about being part of the Steelers and the upcoming game against the Denver Broncos. Cotchery also was on WFAN in New York and talked about New York Jets wide receiver Santonio Holmes and the problems going on with the Jets. Cotchery is even on the latest episode of Steelers Speaks with Teresa Varley. Rick Smith, the agent for Rashard Mendenhall, said that Mendenhall's Read more [...]

By Jeremy Hritz Sure, the ankle of Ben Roethlisberger is hurt. Probably even more so than it was last week. Yes, Rashard Mendenhall is done for the year, and possibly until October. Correct. The up-and-coming corner Cortez Allen is out, and Keenan Lewis, though he will play, is dealing with a hamstring. Combine all of this with the return of Doug Legursky and LaMarr Woodley, both who may still have lingering effects from their injuries, and what you have is a recipe for Mile High loss, right? Wrong. The Pittsburgh Steelers of 2011 are a team who have, won in the face of adversity and overcome Read more [...]

When the Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Denver Broncos this Sunday in their AFC wild card matchup they will do so with all undrafted running backs in uniform. Starter Rashard Mendenhall was officially placed on injured reserve Tuesday with a torn ACL in his right knee that he suffered in the final regular season game against the Cleveland Browns and that means Isaac Redman, the Steelers undrafted running back out of Bowie State, will make his second career start. Redman was originally signed as an undrafted free agent in 2009 after offensive coordinator Bruce Arians saw him on tape after a Read more [...]

Below are the offensive personnel packages, play counts and participation chart for the Pittsburgh Steelers week 17 win on Sunday against the Cleveland Browns. It is not surprising that Hines Ward saw 26 snaps in this game as they looked to feed him the ball to get him to his 1,000th career reception. Emmanuel Sanders saw 23 non-penalty snaps in his return to action. Rookie running back John Clay received extra playing time due to the early ACL knee injury to Rashard Mendenhall, and saw 15 non-penalty snaps. Personnel wise we saw the return of the 0 personnel grouping this past week with Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers have promoted running back Chad Spann to the 53 man roster on Tuesday from the practice squad and signed running back Albert Young to the vacant spot on the practice squad. There is no word as of yet to what the corresponding roster move from the 53 man roster was to make room for Spann. Spann was originally signed to the Steelers practice squad on the 12th of December after he spent time with the Colts and the Buccaneers. He was undrafted in 2011 and played his college ball at Northern Illinios. He measures in at almost 5 foot 8 and weighs 201 pounds and played all four Read more [...]