The Steelers just got some BAD news...

We're about halfway through the work week now and it's not looking good for the Steelers when it comes to their injury report. One player in particular is currently in a boot and that is not a good sign as they face the Cincinnati Bengals here in just a few days time. How everyone doing today? How is everyone doing today? Hopefully you guys are having a good day. I don't know how I'm having a long one. I don't know about you guys, but we do have some injury report stuff to kind of get into. First day of practice back from that week two loss to the New England Patriots. Got some news around who participated, who didn't participate, some quotes from Aaron Rodgers, and much, much more. Before we get into all that, I want to remind you guys to subscribe to the channel. Get up to date on all the Pittsburgh Steelers news. Maybe we give you an update about an offensive line signing. Maybe, hopefully. Or any of the Steelers news that may happen from now until January throughout the rest of the season. I want to make sure you are keyed in and all that. So subscribe and hit that notification bell as well. Let's hop right into this injury report for today. Kind of a longer list. As you can see, four players did not play or did not practice on Wednesday. Today, Jalen Ramsey, Rico Dowdle, Jamel Dean, and Cole Holcomb. Seems like the Jalen Ramsey one is not a super big deal. As you see at the bottom of this Nick Faribault tweet, it seems like it was a rest day. Michael Pittman Jr., Jalen Warren, and Joey Porter were all limited in their practice. Michael Pittman, obviously nursing that foot injury that kept him out of last game. Jalen Warren has a shoulder injury as well. And then Joey Porter, who knows? Who knows at this point if he's actually hurt or not, or what the whole situation is. I don't know as good as you guys don't know. I don't know. Rico Dowdle had a toe injury, which we'll get into. And then Jamel Dean had an ankle injury. Again, like I said, those guys did not practice. Let's focus on Rico Dowdle. He's wearing a boot on that right foot, and that's not good. Not a good sign. Not at all. I did not expect this injury to be as bad as a boot. Obviously, it could be more of like a precautionary thing more than anything. But being in a boot is not a good sign, especially for his availability week three. We're only a few days out here from the game, and he's in a walking boot. So that tells me he's probably out for the game. He would have to have a really quick recovery from a walking boot, or it's ultra precautionary for him to play week three. Knock on wood, maybe he does play. That on top of Jalen Warren being limited with a shoulder injury, not a whole lot of news about that injury yet. The depth chart right now, Jalen Warren, limited, like I said. Rico Dowdle currently in the boot, probably not going to play. And then you have Eli Heidenreich. Are we going to see more Eli Heidenreich this Sunday? Possibly. And I think if we saw more Eli Heidenreich, it'd be really exciting. I pulled up his college stats here, as you can see. This was at Navy, right? So take it with a grain of salt, that offense is nowhere near any offense, basically on the face of the earth, at least in a professional sense, right? But over 1,000 yards rushing, nearly 2,000 yards receiving, that's insane numbers. Someone was ultra, ultra productive. I think we might see more of him, at least more than we have seen. It might not be a full 50-50 workload, in the hypothetical that Dowdle's out for week three. It's not going to be 50-50 between Warren and Heidenreich, definitely not. But I think you're going to see Heidenreich sprinkled in there. And based on his stats, he has a lot of things to bring to the table. I think it could be a fun opportunity for him. Is there going to be an upgrade over Rico Dowdle? Probably not. Rico Dowdle didn't look the sharpest through two weeks, but obviously he's much more reliable, much more of that first down, back, roll, kind of run through you instead of run around you type guy, you get what I'm trying to say. But maybe we'll see in week three. And that's a good time to mention our sponsor for today, and that is CalSheet. On CalSheet, you're trading against other bettors, not against the house, like other sportsbooks that you might think of. You're buying yes or no contracts on things like sports, politics, the weather, and you can trade on the Bengals and Steelers game coming up here. Cincinnati currently at a 63% chance on CalSheet to win the game outright. The Steelers with a 37% chance. If you want to place $25 on the Pittsburgh Steelers to win this game on Sunday, you can get yourself nearly $65. If you're interested in trying out CalSheet at all, you can use the link in our description and in the pin comment and use code digest NFL, just like this on your screen. You get $55 added to your account when you bet $25. That is a change. But when you place a $25 trade, you'll get $55 in return. All right, let's hop back on the news here. We have more news on Joey Porter Jr., and you can tell by my overall demeanor when I talk about this, I'm tired of this whole situation. Whatever happens, either he gets re-signed, which feels unlikely, or he never plays again, or he gets traded. It feels like a headache for at least me as a fan. It's definitely a headache. I don't know about you guys. I have to imagine it's a headache in the locker room, in ownership, but the Steelers have yet again removed the back injury designation from Joey Porter Jr. status, and he was NIR slash conditioning in a limited setting. I wouldn't be surprised tomorrow if he comes back out and he has the back injury again, if it flares up. That's the word that's been used, flare up. If it flares up again, I wouldn't be surprised. In a lot of ways, this is news, but also not news, kind of a nothing burger. With this whole situation, it feels like it's going to be back and forth for as long as both sides want to make it. It seems like mostly on the Steeler side of things. Either they trade him, or you re-sign him, because I don't think he's going to play another game again. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm dead wrong. I hope I have to eat my words. I hope I look like a complete idiot by saying that, but I don't think he plays another game for the Steelers unless they sign him. It almost feels like that's the way this is leaning. Again, he was in a limited setting. Maybe we'll see him ramp up again, but I really, really doubt it. Let's move over to some Aaron Rodgers quotes. He had two quotes today, one on pre-stat motion, and then one on Max Ahanich. We'll start with the pre-stat motion one here. I don't get into pre-stat motion stats. Ranked 31st, the Steelers in pre-stat motion, by the way. I don't care about any of the analytics or how many times we're motioning. Where we are on the offense, sorry, a little bit of a confusing quote there. If we motion a lot, great. If we don't motion, that's too. Okay, Aaron. Again, this was probably a few years ago at this point. I think of the Dolphins offense in that 2023 year when they motioned the heck out of everything. It was super successful, and that was a new wave of offense. Three years ago was motion, motion, motion. All the best offenses did a ton of motion, and now it's really integrated itself into every NFL offense. Not motioning, from my perspective, again, as a fan, as someone who doesn't play professional sports, didn't play collegiate sports, it feels like a necessity to put the defense on its heels, confuse opposing defenses. Reading this quote makes me almost not surprised that the offense undynamic in week two is not having a lot of those fun, interesting plays that are really going to make the defense question what you're going to do. Because it feels like on a lot of the drives, it's run, run, pass, or it's pass, run, pass, or it's any combination of any three combinations. It's only three plays, right? Because how many three and outs did we see last week? But that combination, I feel like pre-step motion would help. Obviously, Raj doesn't think so, but he also had a quote on Max Ahonachor. Like I mentioned, a good quote. Good to hear Aaron Rogers speak highly of Max Ahonachor. I think when he owns his skills, Max is going to have a chance to be a longtime staple of the offensive line here. Obviously, the offensive line for the Steelers has been a major talking point for me, from a lot of other pundits with just how poorly they looked week two. If Max Ahonachor can focus on that word can, if he can own his skills, that would really help to sure up one side of that offensive line. Probably one position of that offensive line, he'd probably be your left tackle for a long time. If he turns out to be that staple left tackle, that's the best thing this offensive line could possibly hope for. At this point, with how they played, I don't see a downside to just starting Ahonachor. At this point, I don't think the offensive line can get much worse than it was week two. At least, that's how I feel. Hopefully, we'll see Ahonachor sooner rather than later, but it's good to see that Rogers is speaking highly of him. Then we'll end on this, not Steelers news, but Cincinnati Bengals news. We will not see Andre Yoshivas on week three. He was placed on IR with a torn ligament in the thumb. He will return some point in the season, but no week three. Just wanted to throw that out there just so you guys know, was Yoshivas ever going to be someone the Steelers defense was scared about? No, because they have Jamar Chase and Tee Higgins and Joe Burrow and Chase Brown, and now a scary defense? Oh gosh, it's going to be quite the interesting game, but no Andre Yoshivas. That's going to do it for today's episode. That's everything that I have for you guys. Hope you guys enjoyed. Again, more videos coming out the rest of the week, ramping up to this week three matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals. Only 73% on Kalashiev winning. Hopefully, they figured something out in today's practice, in tomorrow's practice, and Friday's practice. Hopefully, something we can see some strides and show that they're improving a little bit. Again, that's going to do it for today's episode. We'll see you guys very, very soon with more Steeler content.