Haden continues to test his sore leg
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Steelers cornerback Joe Haden lined up with the first-team defense at practice Wednesday afternoon, but he and the team won’t know until later in the week if he can play Sunday against the New England Patriots.
Haden, who has missed the past four games with a fractured fibula, is going to test his leg in a more rigorous manner Thursday and Friday. The practice Wednesday was a walk-through.
“It feels sore, but we’ll figure it out,” Haden said. “It’s getting there. I was limited today a little bit in practice. It was more of a walkthrough. I’ll be able to tell a bit more tomorrow.”
Haden had been running in the pool and doing light exercises before this week. Starting Monday and into Tuesday he ran on the indoor field at the Steelers practice facility. He also did some back pedaling and some cutting.
“Tomorrow I will be able to tell more going through individual and team drills, see how my leg holds up,” he said. “I think it was good I went out there on Monday and Tuesday, doing those things. It was a little bit of a mental thing. I think I got that out of the way the first two days. Now I just want to be able to cover someone, stop, react and see how myleg feels.”
When Haden was healthy for the first half of the season the Steelers had one of the NFL’s best pass defenses. Since he exited the lineup, the Steelers have given up 263.5 passing yards per game, 63 yards above their season average. They also have given up big plays.
The game against the Patriots likely will decide the No. 1 seed in the AFC and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. Haden doesn’t want to hurt the team by comingback too early.
“We’re in the playoffs,” Haden said. “We have stuff to look forward to. I don’t want to go out there half-assed and be out there hurting the team, hurting myself. Just knowing that we have games coming, knowing I’m on my way back. … I’m just trying to push it. I want to play if I can play. If I can’t, it is what it is.”
Haden signed with the Steelers just before the start of the regular season after getting released by Cleveland, the team that drafted him in 2010 and where he spent his first seven seasons in the NFL. Donning his AFC North championship hat and T-shirt after the victory against the Ravens was a special moment, he said.
Haden felt so good about the victory against the Ravens that he couldn’t bring himself to take his shirt off that night.
“I slept in it,” he said.
Burns: I have CTE
Artie Burns hasn’t been playing in the NFL for very long, but he thinks football already has taken its toll on his health.
The Steelers’ second-year cornerback was among a group of NFL players who talked to Sports Illustrated about whether he would take a test for CTE, the concussion-related degenerative brain disease that can’t currently be tested in living patients. Burns was pretty blunt in his response.
“I definitely know I have it,” Burns said. “I’m going to [test positive for] CTE. I don’t need a test. Is it going to tell me how much I have? We play a physical sport, man. Humans are not made to run into each other.”
Burns has not been diagnosed with a concussion so far in his NFL career. He has played in every game in two seasons with the Steelers. And he had a similar clean bill of health at the University of Miami, where he played in at least 11 games for each of his three seasons with the Hurricanes.
Still, Burns seems to recognize that the many hits he has taken and dealt over the years can add up, even if he wasn’t very obviously concussed on oneplay or another.
Injury report
In addition to Haden being limited, cornerback Coty Sensabaugh (shoulder), tight end Vance McDonald (shoulder) and defensive end StephonTuitt (illness) did not practice. Inside linebacker Tyler Matakevich, who missed the Ravens game with a shoulder injury, was limited.
It has been done. Joe Flacco did it in 2012, beating Brady’s Patriots in the regular season in Baltimore and then upsetting them in the AFC championship in New England on way to winning the Ravens’ second Super Bowl.
Peyton Manning’s 2006 Colts beat Brady twice, in New England in the regular season and at home in the AFCchampionship.
And then there was Eli Manning, whose 2011 New York Giants beat the Patriots in the regular season and thenin the Super Bowl.
Is it Roethlisberger’s turn, or will Brady and the Patriots vanquish the Steelers on the way to tying them with six Lombardi trophies?
“He’s the best in the world, maybe the best who has ever done it,’’ Roethlisberger said, “so of course we’re going to relish the opportunities.”
Tomlin left little doubt that he thinks these teams will meet again after calling Sunday’s game “Part I.” Where they play Part II should be determined by this week’s outcome and make a whole lot of differencein who advances to SuperBowl LII.
“There’s obviously a lot at stake,” Roethlisberger said. “It’s still a big game, but it is a regular-season game, but it’s one that’s got some implications moving forward.”
Roethlisberger has been playing at the top of his game lately. He has been a different quarterback since the “Maybe I don’t have it anymore” loss to Jacksonville in which he was intercepted five times.
His passer rating through that fifth game of the season ranked among the worst of his career at 75.8. Over the past eight games, it has been 100.8. He had six touchdowns and seven interceptions through five games. Since then, he has thrown 18 touchdown passes and six interceptions. His yards-per-attempt climbed from 6.51 through five games to 8.06 the past eight.
Roethlisberger is playing aswell as ever entering one of the biggest regular-season gamesof his career.
“I’ve seen a lot of big games, been in a lot of big games,’’ he said nonchalantly. “For me it’s this week, it’s the biggest game of the [year]because it’s this week.”
This will be the first time two quarterbacks start in the same game with seven Super Bowl rings between them. They also are 1-2 in passing yards in the league — Brady has 3,865 and Roethlisberger 3,744.
Roethlisberger engineered his 43rd game-winning drive in the fourth quarter of overtime to beat Baltimore Sunday. It also was the fourth time he has done it in their past five victories, all won by a Chris Boswell field goal at or near the end.
“I’d rather not have them in the sense that if you’re playing well enough, you don’t need to have a fourthquarter comeback,” Roethlisberger said. “But if you have to do it, I want the ball, I want to be able to have those opportunities. I relish the moment. I think any competitor will tell you that no matter what sport it is, you want to have the ball, you want to have the chance to go down and win the game.”
He now has a chance to do that and so much more.