Chris Adamski stories, Page 122
Derek Watt, Marcus Allen remain out of Steelers practice with injuries
The first practice report of Week 5 looks a lot like the past few weeks for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Special teamers Derek Watt (hamstring) and Marcus Allen (foot) did not participate in Wednesday’s practice, leaving their statuses in doubt for Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles. But the six other...
Former Pitt CB Avonte Maddox returns to Heinz Field to play Steelers
Only two of the other 66 players on the Philadelphia Eagles’ active roster or injured lists are shorter than Avonte Maddox. Just three weigh less. But that doesn’t mean the “little” former Pitt standout hasn’t made a big impression on the only NFL team he has known over the past...
JuJu Smith-Schuster OK shifting to more of possession receiver for Steelers
He broke the Pittsburgh Steelers’ record for longest touchdown reception. Then, he broke it again before his 22nd birthday. So, it might be odd to affix a label to JuJu Smith-Schuster as … possession receiver? Yet, to this point of the 2020 season, the Steelers appear to be using Smith-Schuster...
Bud Dupree boosting the production of Steelers teammate T.J. Watt
In this election year, perhaps there is no better pair of running mates on the Pittsburgh Steelers than outside linebackers T.J. Watt and Bud Dupree. In the minds of most, including those who have a say in the NFL’s defensive player of the month and year honors, it’s Watt who...
Confident rookie WR Chase Claypool quickly earns trust of Steelers
During the Pittsburgh Steelers’ most recent game, the skill-position offensive player who played the most wasn’t former Pro Bowlers JuJu Smith-Schuster or James Conner. It wasn’t $12 million free-agent signee Eric Ebron, either. It was a rookie, Chase Claypool. Claypool played 61 of the Steelers’ 80 offensive snaps during a...
Steelers Four Downs: Suffocating run defense on all levelsVideo
1. No run zone By any measure, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ run defense has been elite through three weeks this season. It ranks No. 1 in the NFL by total yardage allowed (54.0 per game), No. 1 in average yards per carry (2.766) and tied for No. 1 in touchdowns ceded...
Steelers-Titans game rescheduled for Oct. 25, Steelers-Ravens bumped back a week
The NFL announced the plans for the postponed Pittsburgh Steelers game for this weekend, and its contingency went the most expected route. The Steelers will play the Tennessee Titans on Oct. 25, three weeks to the day after the game was originally scheduled to be played before multiple Titans players...
Postponements, early bye weeks haven’t had negative effect on Steelers
Parking lots and highways turned into ice rinks and speedskating tracks on a January weekend almost four years ago in America’s Heartland. Eleven years earlier, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ night-before-game meetings were conducted by flashlight at a blacked-out hotel near Miami as wind gusts bent palm trees outside. Although Hurricane Jeanne...
Browns sign recently-released Steelers WR Ryan Switzer to their practice squad
Ryan Switzer has found a new NFL home, and it’s as close to Pittsburgh as you can get. Released by the Pittsburgh Steelers in their final preseason roster cuts, Switzer was signed to the practice squad of the Cleveland Browns on Thursday. Switzer spent the past two seasons as a...
Steelers’ T.J. Watt named AFC defensive player of month, Sports Illustrated cover boy
For the second time in three regular-season calendar months, T.J. Watt was judged to be the best defensive player in the AFC. The Pittsburgh Steelers edge rusher was announced Thursday as the recipient of that honor for September. Through three weeks of the NFL season, Watt is tied for the...
Steelers brace for ‘height, weight, speed’ of bruising Titans RB Derrick Henry
They faced a former Pro Bowl running back during each of the first three weeks of the season, and the Pittsburgh Steelers emerged with the NFL’s No. 1 rushing defense. But in Week 4, the Steelers’ defense is faced with its biggest challenge yet. Literally. The 6-foot-3, 247-pound Derrick Henry...
Titans’ Mike Vrabel remembers life, coaching lessons gleaned from NFL start with Steelers
Long before he became an NFL All Pro or won three Super Bowl rings or even became an NFL starter — and certainly long before he became head coach of the Tennessee Titans — Mike Vrabel was a draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Long remembered and known now for...
Steelers, Ben Roethlisberger sharing the wealth among pass-catchers
Last season, only four Pittsburgh Steelers wide receivers or tight ends caught touchdown passes. This season, it took only three games to eclipse that mark. Furthermore, in 2019 only four Steelers wide receivers or tight ends were targeted by an average of at least two passes per game. This season,...
Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger to unable-to-practice Titans: Deal with it
The Tennessee Titans might be forced to play the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday without the benefit of a practice in the week leading up to it. Some have suggested this puts the Titans at an unfair disadvantage, but Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger sent a subtle yet unmistakable message for his...
Steelers’ Villanueva: Helmet decision ‘exclusively’ about Alwyn Cashe, not Antwon Rose
Two weeks after being the lone Pittsburgh Steelers player to have an alternate name on the back of his helmet, offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva on Monday explained why he chose to honor Alwyn Cashe and not Antwon Rose Jr. “I felt that my decision to honor Sergeant First Class Alwyn...
Watt brothers relish being on same field; Steelers’ T.J., Derek get better of J.J., TexansVideo
The coin toss that preceded Sunday’s Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Houston Texans game at Heinz Field perhaps resembled other, less-formal coin tosses from many years ago on a grass field in a Wisconsin backyard. Two Watts, ready to go at each other. The second NFL game over the past 93 years...
Behind James Conner, Steelers run game again produces when most needed
The Pittsburgh Steelers’ running game, at times, has been mediocre through the first three weeks of the 2020 season. But, on Sunday, they made it 3-for-3 when it comes to being great when it was most needed. For the third consecutive game, the Steelers got a strong rushing effort during...
Steelers guard David DeCastro ‘little rusty’ but effective in season debutVideo
For just the second time since 2013, an injury prevented David DeCastro from playing in regular-season games when he sat out Pittsburgh Steelers’ victories in Weeks 1 and 2. “It’s not fun being hurt, not being able to be out there with the guys,” DeCastro said, “so I couldn’t wait...
Love of each other, sports, competing has driven Watt brothers since childhood
Their love of sports was born on the cul de sac in front of their house and on the grass fields behind it. The work ethic was instilled by their firefighter father and work-her-way-up-the-company-ladder mother. Their competitiveness? That came by way of an elderly woman over sips of cranberry juice-and-Sprite....
Steelers Four Downs: ‘Blitzburgh,’ as much as ever, but Big Ben being risk averse
1.Putting on pressure Dating back decades, the blitz has been part of the very fabric of identity of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defenses. As recently as 2018 and last season, the Steelers ranked third and fourth in the NFL in percentage of snaps in which their defense sent more than four...
Steelers’ Diontae Johnson seeks greater chemistry with Big Ben, to ‘make him look good’Video
He leads the Pittsburgh Steelers in receptions and receiving yards. He is third in the NFL in targeted throws. But that’s not good enough for Diontae Johnson, who sought more chemistry with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger during practice this week. After Roethlisberger approached him Wednesday morning to request crisp practices between...
Newly-acquired Mike Matheson sees himself as good fit in Penguins’ style, lineup
No one knows with certainty when the next NHL season will begin. If Mike Matheson was making the decision, it wouldn’t alter much from a normal season’s calendar. “I wish the season was starting tomorrow,” the Pittsburgh Penguins’ newest defenseman said during a video call with media Friday. Matheson was...
All hands on deck: No Steelers will miss Sunday’s game because of injury
It’s a perfect game of sorts, one that seemingly is as rare as the traditional version from baseball. For the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 3, their entire roster has a clean bill of health heading into a game. Receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster returned to practice Friday after being the lone member...
‘Blindsided’ Patric Hornqvist: Easy to waive no-trade clause because Penguins ‘didn’t want me’Video
Patric Hornqvist said he plans on remaining in Pittsburgh for another month or two before beginning the process of finding a home and a school for his daughters in South Florida. And while he allowed that Pittsburgh will always hold a place in his heart, the veteran forward indicated it...
Steelers get first look at $156 million man, Texans QB Deshaun WatsonVideo
Deshaun Watson is in his fourth NFL season, and earlier this month, he signed the second-biggest contract in league history. Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers will face him for the first time. The Steelers are one of eight teams Watson has not faced since he was a first-round pick of the...
