Pittsburgh Steelers Beat Up in Preseason Opener
By Matt Shetler
Playing the first preseason game on the schedule, the score of the game doesn’t matter. Neither do the individual statistics.
The only thing a coach wants to accomplish in a preseason game is to come out of it healthy.
That didn’t happen for the Pittsburgh Steelers Thursday night in their preseason loss to the Philadelphia.
The fact that the Steelers lost the game is trivial. Head coach Mike Tomlin saw some good things out of the first team offense and defense and backups like rookie running back Chris Rainey took advantage of their first opportunity to impress the coaching staff.
But even had they won the game Thursday night, they would have lost in the end as the Steelers lost three parts of their offense in the first half. Already playing without Mike Wallace and Rashard Mendenhall, the Steelers offense suffered some major casualties in the preseason opener.
Fullback David Johnson, who has had an outstanding camp so far and was ticketed to be a big part of the Steelers offense, was lost early on in the first quarter with a serious knee injury.
One drive later, rookie tackle Mike Adams, who had his struggles in his first audition, was also lost with a knee injury.
Then running back Jonathan Dwyer, who is vying for a backup job behind Isaac Redman, was lost with a shoulder injury.
Mission not accomplished for the Steelers.
Injuries are certainly a part of the game, but you hate to see guys go down early on in the preseason, especially when you are a team that doesn’t have great depth across the field and doesn’t have the salary cap room to improve on that depth.
However injuries in the preseason, even not serious ones, create opportunities for others to impress the coaching staff. We will see soon if anyone steps up and fills the immediate void.