Nov 24, 2015 3 min read

Mike Tomlin admitted today that the Steelers will be about as healthy as they can be at this point – obviously not including a long list of players lost to season-ending injuries – as they head to Seattle.

Only tight end Matt Spaeth, who has been out with a knee injury, was listed on the team’s initial injury report, and as Tomlin noted, Spaeth practiced on Monday.

When asked about the health status of both Ben Roethlisberger and backup Landry Jones, Tomlin said that neither is as healthy as they would be in the spring but that both were “great” this week.

That’s good news for the Steelers. Roethlisberger had been dealing with knee and foot injuries for most of the first half of this season, forcing him to miss four full games and parts of three others, while Jones suffered an ankle sprain two weeks ago against Cleveland that forced Roethlisberger into action.

@ I asked Tomlin today if there is a deadline for center Maurkice Pouncey to be activated off the injured reserve list with a designation to return. He said there is and the Steelers have not yet reached that point.

The league has no set deadline involving that list. A player placed on IR with a return designation can resume practicing after six weeks but cannot play in a game before Week 8.

Once he starts practicing, the team has 21 days with which to either activate him, release him or place him on season-ending injured reserve.

Other than that, there are no rules.

But, realistically, if Pouncey is to return this season, he’ll need the full three weeks of practice time – or at least two. That would likely mean the Steelers, if they are going to get him back at some point, would need him to begin practicing sometime in December.

If he is unable to practice before that point, the team will have to move forward with the idea they won’t have their All-Pro center.

@ Tomlin said the team is only concerned with what is going on in the stadium in which they are playing from here on out, noting that they control what happens to them.

As he said, the Steelers are sitting at 6-4, which could be worse, could be better. But they are in the thick of things and control their own destiny.

Along that same line of thinking, he was asked if he plans on working Jordan Todman and/or Isaiah Pead into the rotation at running back DeAngelo Williams.

He didn’t say he would run the wheels off Williams, but he also said he wasn’t worried about getting those two guys touches with an eye down the road in case they might need them. He is focusing solely on what the team needs to win each week.

That would seem to suggest that Williams will continue to get the bulk of the carries.

@ William Gay hasn’t recorded an interception this season and has 32 tackles, including 28 solos despite being on the field most of the time.

But Tomlin said that doesn’t mean Gay is having a bad season.

As Tomlin said, a lack of action for Gay is a good thing. It means he’s doing his job and opposing quarterbacks aren’t throwing his way.

That would be a big reason why Antwon Blake has 58 tackles, second most on the team, to go along with a team-best nine pass defenses, while nickel corner Ross Cockrell has 28 tackles and 6 pass defenses.

Gay has three pass defenses.