The Steelers have signed Garrett Hartley according to his agent Erik Burkhardt.
https://twitter.com/ErikBurkhardt/status/631147475890491397
I reported earlier that he was one of 3 kickers the team was hosting for tryouts today. Out of those 3, Hartley was the most promising in my opinion. We’ll get to see him on Friday in Jacksonville.
The injury bug bit the Steelers Sunday night as steady kicker Shaun Suisham tore his ACL at the HOF game while trying to make a second-half tackle.
Suisham will be hard to replace. His specialized directional kicking and experience at the often tricky Heinz field has been an ace in the whole since 2010, making him the most accurate field-goal kicker in Steeler history. The 33 year old converted 59 of 64 field-goal tries over the past two years and just signed a new four year contract last August.
The Steelers are holding kicker workouts Tuesday in an effort to find a stop-gap replacement for Suisham. Among the invited are Garrett Hartley, Alex Henery, and Jay Feely. Veteran kickers Billy Cundiff and Shayne Graham should also be up for consideration.
Graham, 37, has been around the league. He’s been with a total of 14 teams, including the Steelers for one game in 2013 after a hamstring injury for Suisham.
Feely, 39, has is also a well traveled player, being with seven teams.
Henery seems to be a gamble. He was drafted in the 2011 NFL draft in the fourth round by the Eagles, but they cut him last August. The Lions picked him up in September, but cut him after he missed three field goals in an October loss to Buffalo.
Hartley and Cundiff both played with the Browns in the 2014 season.
One silver lining is the timing of the injury. Although the Steelers broke the norm and didn’t have any additional kickers in camp, they have a month before the regular season starts on September 10th to find a replacement for the season. Even then, the team can pick up a veteran after the season starts. Whomever wins the spot will need to also have the ability to kick off. Punters Brad Wing and Jordan Berry have no experience in that area.
Martavis Bryant expects to return to practice today in Latrobe according to Gerry Dulac of the Post-Gazette.
https://twitter.com/gerrydulac/status/631134210628190208
Bryant has been sidelined for the past week and a half after he underwent a minor procedure to remove an infection from his elbow. Seeing as how he went through pregame warmups in Canton, I expect that he’ll be able to get some reps against the Jaguars this Friday.
Former Steelers kicker Jeff Reed has been known to make a bad decision or two in his time. <fake cough> paper towel dispenser <fake cough>. After Sunday night’s game, Reed drew quite a bit of attention on social media after many fans said that he was thrown out of the Hall of Fame game for fighting with fans.
The following is a series of tweets from people at the game that night. After some digging, some of these people who are featured in stories on Deadspin, TheBigLead, etc… are Browns fans. I feel that’s worth noting.
https://twitter.com/OUtkean/status/630555156560674816
https://twitter.com/LRJenkinshungry/status/630603461877370880
EDIT- One of the fans at the game who claimed to have gotten into a fight with Reed, has since deleted his tweet and set his account to private. It appears that he got a little hungry for attention, or perhaps Jeff hurt his feelings…
He can delete tweets, but he can’t delete screenshots I take of stuff. 🙂
https://twitter.com/tomlade25/status/630567113321771008
https://twitter.com/tomlade25/status/630573225265774592
https://twitter.com/bbelden330/status/630577826329161728
https://twitter.com/bbelden330/status/630579827888771072
https://twitter.com/OUtkean/status/630566644633468928
So, based on the accounts from people in the stands, you might be inclined to think that Reed, being the bad-boy, partying, paper towel dispenser punching ruffian that he is, had a few too many beers and decided to straighten a fan or two out.
According to the former Steelers kicker, the media and observer reports from that night are completely false.
https://twitter.com/TheRealJeffReed/status/630796169191493632
He shared his version of the story on Facebook.
https://twitter.com/PaulZeise/status/630809158858743809/photo/1
https://twitter.com/PaulZeise/status/630809391403507712/photo/1
I could see it being a case where Jeff Reed is just trying to enjoy the game with his friends, and a couple obnoxious fans start trolling him about punching a paper towel dispenser, or pulling up shirtless rooster photos on their phones, and, after a while of trying to be polite, it escalates. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.
Yesterday afternoon Reed told 97.3 The Fan that he called Mike Tomlin about the Kicker opening, but hasn’t heard back yet.
As you’d expect, the Steelers aren’t wasting any time trying to find a kicker to fill Shaun Suisham’s cleats. After learning the bad news from earlier today, the team has already reportedly scheduled a few workouts for tomorrow.
According to NFL Network, the Steelers will host Jay Feely, Alex Henery, and Garrett Hartley for workouts tomorrow.
Feely is 39 years old. The 14 year veteran was a free agent for much of last season before being signed by the Bears in December.
Henery is 27. He was cut by the Lions last October after missing 3 field goals in a close loss to the Bills. It wasn’t the first performance last season that had people questioning his confidence.
Hartley is 29 years old. He was signed by the Browns last year to replace Billy Cundiff. He did well there, but was released by the Browns in May.
None of these guys are really “that guy” you’re going to feel comfortable with when the game on the line from the 45 with 3 seconds left in late October, when the wind is blowing and it’s spitting freezing rain at Heinz Field.
Ed Bouchette of the Post Gazette is reporting that K Shaun Suisham will be having knee surgery this week to repair his ACL and cartilage damage. If this is the case, he will most certainly be placed on Injured Reserve and be out for the entire 2015 season.
In light of this news, you can expect the Steelers to sign his replacement ASAP.
Last night K Shaun Suisham left the game early after suffering what Coach Tomlin later described as a potentially significant injury. Suisham, who was seen walking out of the locker room on crutches, is awaiting MRI results to determine the severity of his injury.
NFL’s Ian Rapoport reports this morning that the Steelers veteran is telling people he believes he has a torn ACL.
https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/630765789029642241
Since the team doesn’t have a backup Kicker, expect the Steelers to make some moves quickly to bring in a replacement leg.
Kicker Shaun Suisham left the game early after suffering what Coach Mike Tomlin later called a ‘potentially signifcant’ knee injury. Suisham appeared to sustain the injury while making a tackle after the kickoff to start the 2nd half. He limped to the locker room, and was later seen using crutches.
https://twitter.com/C_AdamskiTrib/status/630583404589936644
The injury is to his left (non-kicking) leg. There is no back up kicker, so if Suisham’s injury is significant, the team will need to bring someone in quickly. He will have testing done tomorrow, so we’ll have to wait and see just how serious it is.
The other two players injured tonight were OT Marcus Gilbert, and RB Cameron Stingily. Gilbert reportedly was poked in the eye, and his injury didn’t appear to be serious. Stingily injured his knee during the second half forcing him to leave the game. He is being evaluated.
If you didn’t like Landry Jones before, you probably didn’t start liking him tonight. The 3rd string QB took nearly all the reps under center tonight as the Steelers fell to the Vikings 14-3.
While Jones did show improvement from the last time we saw him in preseason, he left a lot to be desired. To his defense, he was surrounded by several guys who had never seen NFL playing time before. TE Jesse James dropped what should have been an easy touchdown. Regardless, Steeler fans haven’t seen him throw a touchdown outside of practice in…a while. It certainly wasn’t all bad. While Jones hesitated to look down field for much of the night, he did seem more comfortable overall, and made changes to protection on various plays.
If you’re freaking out over this loss, you should relax. The game was mostly about putting inexperienced guys in certain situations to see how the perform. Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell, Heath Miller, Antonio Brown, Maurkice Pouncey, James Harrison, Martavis Bryant, Markus Wheaton, Jarvis Jones, Mike Mitchell, and Shamarko Thomas were not in uniform tonight.
Like Jones, Dri Archer saw lots of action tonight. It was his birthday. The second year RB/WR looked like he might actually belong on a NFL offense tonight. He saw playing time during every series tonight, totaling four carries, six receptions, a kickoff return and a punt return.
Some quick observations before I re-watch the game tomorrow:
Jesse James had some pretty bad 1st game jitters, or at least, it looked like that’s what it was. The rookie TE dropped an easy would-be touchdown pass, and later had a bad fumble.
Bud Dupree was slower than I expected and looked a step behind at times. I’m assuming he’ll need a couple games to shake his camp legs.
The front 7 looked pretty good. While most of the offensive starters had the night off, the defensive starters were in, and they looked pretty sharp.
WR Sammie Coates showed promise. He did have some miscommunication with his QB, and he drew an OPI call on a deep ball, but he looked better than what I expected his first night out.
The Steelers face the Jaguars Friday night at 7:30.
The Bus made his final stop last night. Jerome Bettis was the clear headliner at a ceremony that honored stars of NFL past like Tim Brown, Junior Seau, Charles Haley, Bill Polian, and others. “We’ve gotta get one thing understood tonight,” Bettis said to an audience dominated by Steelers fans, “we’re in Canton, Ohio, but this is Steelers Country.” He wasn’t kidding. The audience looked like a Steelers 1:00 home game.
Bettis exemplified humility and class as he told the story of his journey from meager beginnings in Detroit to Hall of Fame inductee. He thanked several people, and said heartfelt thanks to his family.
[xyz-ihs snippet=”ESPNBETTIS”]
What came as a surprise, to me at least, was his thanking Ben Roethlisberger for “the tackle”. “Brother, without you saving that tackle, I still might be on the doorsteps, brother,” Bettis said as the camera closed in on a laughing Roethlisberger. “I owe you for life.”
His public speaking prowess was on full display as he spoke to the sea of spectators at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I got goosebumps when he started a chant of “Here we go Steelers” and looked for my towel when he led the first of a couple Terrible Towel waves. Here’s his speech in its entirety.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFXbJNg1MV4