Steelers 2-a-days: Maurkice Pouncey in 11th season, Pine-Richland’s Kevin Rader seeks spot

Editor’s note: Leading up to a unique Pittsburgh Steelers training camp staged at Heinz Field this year, the Tribune-Review will be running through the team’s 90-man roster, assessing each player’s outlook for the 2020 season. The breakdown will go through the roster, in mostly alphabetical order, two per day, between June 9 and July 23, a day originally planned to be reporting day for players to camp. (Contract data courtesy spotrac.com)

C MAURKICE POUNCEY

Experience: 11th season

Contract status: $12.95 million cap hit in 2020, signed through 2021

2020 outlook: One of the Steelers’ best players of the Mike Tomlin era, Pouncey enters his second decade playing for the organization and will be turning 31 years old days before training camp begins. Although it’s not a unanimous opinion by some outside observers, the Steelers feel as if they have a future Hall of Fame-type performer.

Bottom line: Last season wasn’t the best for the Steelers offense or their offensive line, and although Pouncey wasn’t awful (he was named to the Pro Bowl for the eighth time among eight full seasons he’s played), he could use a bounce-back season to stave off whispers that he has passed his prime. It also would affect his bank account — Pouncey would be due another contract extension, just two years after he inked for two additional years and an extra $22 million. If for whatever reason, Pouncey shows signs his game is slipping in his 30s, it’s conceivable the Steelers might elect to pass on extension talks in the spring. If Pouncey has a strong season, a lucrative new deal likely will be signed next summer.

“I never saw it coming,” Kevin Rader said Wednesday at training camp at Saint Vincent. “I love the fact that they wanted me. … I come back and I get to play for the team that I’ve been watching all my life. It’s an awesome experience.”https://t.co/oeqYG22pLl

— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) August 15, 2019

TE KEVIN RADER

Experience: Spent 2018 training camp with the Packers; 2019 camp — and parts of the regular season on the practice squad — with Steelers

Contract status: $610,000 cap hit in 2020, under team control for at least four seasons

2020 outlook: The Pine-Richland graduate was one of two WPIAL alumni to make the Steelers practice squad when camp broke last season. Two years prior, the Youngstown State product made one of the most famous catches in NCAA FCS championship history. The Steelers think enough of him that they signed him five times over a 12-month span — though, conversely, they represents that they cut him four times in 2019, too.

Bottom line: Rader clearly earned the affection of the coaching staff as a player they could trust, and one who showed enough blocking prowess he was worth keeping around as a practice player and an emergency option at tight end. With Eric Ebron and Vance McDonald on the team, Rader’s only chance at the active roster is to show he’s still reliable while Zach Gentry perhaps shows he’s not worth waiting on his upside. Otherwise, the practice squad might again be his ceiling in 2020.

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