It’s been so far so good from an injury standpoint for the Steelers when it comes to the first round of practices, as reports says that DE Aaron Smith has looked good so far and his arm which he had surgery on has responded well to the rotator cuff surgery that cut his season short.
Smith is a player that when he’s in there, he plays well, does his job and plays at a high level. Yet gets little to almost no credit for the job he does. When the vet has to sit due to injury, which has been twice over the last couple seasons, the Steelers have missed him and have been much worse in stopping the run than with him in there.
On another not, safety Troy Polamalu is back on the field practicing, and reports say unless he has a setback, he’ll be ready to go for the start of training camp in about two and a half months after playing in just three games last season.
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George H
May 1, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Im a little confused… The Steelers are a 3-4 team and rely on the DEs to be big run stoppers. Now Im hearing that some of these rookie OLBs are going to play DE in the same aspect as a Dwight Freeney. Im excited to see that the Defense is gonna get some more pass rushers, but not to the negative affect of stopping the run.
jay
May 2, 2010 at 12:59 pm
George H,
One can only surmise they’re referring to they’re nickel, dime and some obvious 3-4 passing situations (since the league has become “pass-happy”). If they didn’t value the run stopping component, they would not have spent the money to resign Hampton. We’re gonna see a lot more nickel package with Farrior out (thank God because he simply can’t play pass coverage anymore) and fewer bigger D-Linemen.
DrGeorge
May 3, 2010 at 8:30 am
The new OLBs will never replace the talent of Aaron Smith, who deserves far more credit than he has received. My guess is that the faster OLBs will be used on obvious passing downs and as possible backups to give Smith a rest. Our older DEs need to be used with discretion to prevent them from wearing down over the season. Faster OLBs will be useful against the run, and our older OLBs need more rest too.
mark
May 4, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Good point about the use of the “new” OLB’s, but I think this is more depth for the ST and the occasional rest for certain players in passing downs.The more I think of it, the more I believe Jay is correct in that Harrison is moving inside next season(2011) or maybe 2012?(takes Farriors place?) The rumors that the team will not be able to sign Woodley after this year and thats why the emphasis on drafting OLB high this season is a bit worrisome.I dont really want to talk that far in advance, but it is food for thought. If one of these new kids turn in a productive season in limited playing time,it might make this a tough decision for the team considering Woodley is going to be worth a LOT of money after this season. Remember, the team chose not to re-sign Kevin Greene because Jason Gildon was a young, hungry and solid player waiting in the wings. That worked out well for the Steelers after 1995,so does history repeat itself? I can only say that the differance is that Woodley has NOT even approached his best/prime years yet. I hope he is signed for 3-5 more years.