Welcome to your weekly Pittsburgh Steelers mailbag. As always, we’re here for the next hour to answer whatever is on your mind.
To your questions!
Stephen Jacobson: Hey Alex! As always, thanks for the great work. Do you have a 2025 season prediction for us? I am wavering between 10-7 and 11-6. I expect the OL will be better than nost expect. Thanks
Alex: Hey man! Appreciate it. I will have one shortly in a yearly post I do. So I don’t want to give it away yet and like you, and still debating it. A lot comes down to if I think this Steelers team can get over the hump and win a playoff game. They certainly can but will I predict it? I’m not sure yet. You’ll definitely know before Week One.
Ralph Neely: Hey Alex! Thoughts on why the Steelers chose to 53 man roster a fifth Guard in Scharping rather than a Gunner1 in Pierre? I get the other moves today: Howard and Kent to IR and the Clark add to the 53, but not the Scharping add. That’s a real headscratcher for me.
Alex: Pierre can – and probably will – still be elevated Week 1. So he could potentially still dress and play against the Jets.
They needed Scharping on the roster in some capacity to be a third-string center. They only had two on the whole roster, Zach Frazier and Ryan McCollum. Scharping mostly played center in camp, even if it’s not his natural spot. The PS guys, Dylan Cook and Steven Jones, aren’t centers.
Could Schapring have been on the PS instead and Pierre on the 53? Yes, no reason why you couldn’t switch them around. But it’s six of one, half dozen of the other. In theory, put Scharping on the 53 so he can’t be poached by another team (the way Pittsburgh poached him last year). But it’s the same outcomes all the same. We’ll see who dresses Week One and if Scharping can get a helmet. Probably not the way things currently stand but we’ll see.
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