Inside the Ropes: Steelers' Senquez Golson injured again
About two hours before practice Sunday, Senquez Golson was talking about how good he feels. Golson, who missed each of his first two NFL seasons because of injury, said he was looking forward to live tackling on the first day of pads.
The cornerback said he's “not superstitious (about injury), but I'm not getting ahead of myself.”
Last season, Golson suffered a foot injury during the fourth practice of camp and never practiced again. This season, it was the third practice of camp Sunday that felled him.
Golson pulled up lame while covering a punt in a drill late in the session. He never went down, made his way to the sidelines and initially wasn't even evaluated by training staff. However, he was carted off the field.
Afterward, coach Mike Tomlin wouldn't speculate the seriousness of the lower-body injury other than to say it was, “soft tissue … Usually, those injuries last a couple days, but we keep an eye on those guys.”
A 2015 second-round pick who had been linked to the slot position, Golson has been a second-team outside cornerback so far this camp.
• The tone was set early for team drills: The first snap of 11-on-11 drills featured two tight ends and a fullback in a running play out of an I-formation.
• The defense won four of the “Seven Shots” 2-point conversion drills Sunday. Xavier Grimble and James Conner had “touchdown” receptions (from Landry Jones and Joshua Dobbs, respectively) and Fitzgerald Toussaint an easy run on a wrapround draw. Justin Hunter caught a pass but was tackled short of the goal line, Mike Mitchell broke up a Jones pass to Brown and Dobbs threw an incompletion intended for Cobi Hamilton.
• That was the final snap Mitchell participated in Sunday as the safety sat out with a soft tissue injury. Robert Golden played the remainder of the day at Mitchell's first-team free safety spot, with Jacob Hagen the next man up at second-team free safety.
• In the daily anticipated matchup between All-Pro receiver Antonio Brown and emerging shutdown cornerback Artie Burns, Brown beat Burns down the left sideline on a pass from Jones early in practice. It could be argued Brown would have been flagged for pushing off, and he bobbled the ball as he went to the ground. That didn't stop Brown from giving a flexed-muscles gesture as Burns appeared to look on incredulously. Later, Burns stayed with Brown in tight coverage step-for-step down the left side of the field, but Brown deftly dug in his foot and turned back for an easy reception of about 20 yards off a nice pass from Jones. After this one, Burns smiled and nodded knowingly.
