We’ve all heard the expression – maybe you’ve actually heard a breathless play-by-play guy say it - “You can’t tell the players without a program!”
Of course, in my position, I shouldn’t need a program since I am able to watch practices and am familiar with the players, including (most of) those on the practice squad. However, Sunday night in Los Angeles I couldn’t tell a couple of the Steelers even with a program!
Admittedly, I’d been away over the weekend –- off since Thursday to celebrate a mutual 65-year old birthday with friends in my hometown (a year late per Covid). I was a little out of the loop, only paying peripheral attention, so I knew than Ben Roethlisberger would play and that TJ Watt, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Joe Haden and Kevin Dotson would not.
Nonetheless, I arrived after a day of travel and sat down for the game against the Chargers knowing I would see some backups. However, I wasn’t quite prepared to see numbers 50 and 61. I hope this isn’t a practice reporting violation but I had noticed a 61 on the scout team a few times. But 50? Did not remember seeing him at all until Sunday.
Not to disparage this number 50 – his name is Delontae Scott out of SMU – but there have been some pretty good 50s here. Most recently, Ryan Shazier and, before him, Larry Foote, Earl Holmes and David Little. They weren’t pretty good; they were really good.
Yet Sunday night, Scott got a number of Prime Time close-ups even though he was only out there for 9 plays – 7 on defense and 2 on special teams – and even though he turned in a clean sheet. 0 tackles, 0 assists, 0 QB pressures, etc. Not exactly Shazier/Foote/Holmes/Little stats. Nonetheless, welcome to the NFL!
61 is Daniel Archibong and he is a big dude – 6-6, 307. He played at Temple and didn’t get the close-ups but did make some plays, assisting on a pair of tackles, on just 8 snaps. Interestingly, that somewhat meager contribution already vaults Archibong near the top of “the guys who wore 61” list. It’s a weird number for a defensive lineman and none of the offensive linemen who wore it had distinguished careers here – think Sean Mahan and Tom Myslinksi.
Now that we know who they are, we don’t need a program to identify Scott and Archibong and we may have to get used to it. We’ve already seen Derek Carr pinpoint Ahkello Witherspoon. It didn’t take long for a rookie, Justin Fields, to find Arthur Maulet in coverage. Justin Herbert went after Witherspoon and, on the backbreaker, rookie Tre Norwood - although Cam Sutton seemed culpable for jumping Austin Ekeler’s route to begin with.
The parade of injuries/Covid contacts may never end.
Fitzpatrick may be back shortly but I’m not sure Watt and/or Haden will be walking through that door anytime soon - with the Bengals and Ravens up next.
With that in mind, the standard really can’t be the standard. It may be up to a bunch of guys you hadn’t heard of 3 or 4 months ago - or 3 or 4 weeks ago - or even 3 or 4 days ago to maintain hope for the 2021 Steelers season.