The Steelers were without their two best offensive players for parts of Saturday night’s win over the Bengals, but the initial reports on quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and wide receiver Antonio Brown seem positive.
According to Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Roethlisberger came through the locker room briefly Sunday and said his right shoulder was “sore,” but declared himself “day-to-day.”
He had an MRI on his shoulder after taking a hard shot from Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict, but said there is apparently no ligament damage, though he didn’t offer specifics of the extent of the injury.
He came back to finish the game, but clearly couldn’t throw the same way after Burfict sacked him — and then gave him the business — in the third quarter.
“Coach [Todd Haley] called one deep one in there and, obviously, he had to because time was running out,” Roethlisberger said after the game. “So I went over to the sideline and said, ‘Coach you can’t do that anymore, I can’t throw it that far.’ We knew we had to work our way down the field.”
Dulac’s report also said that Brown, who went into the concussion protocol after taking a hit to the helmet from Burfict, “is said to be fine and should be able to play against the Broncos.”
That’s a quick turnaround considering the jarring blow, and we’ll see when Brown is cleared by an independent neurologist, or whether that’s someone on the football side of things speculating to Dulac about something they can’t possibly know.