Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said he expected rookie defensive lineman Derrick Harmon to be able to return to the lineup for this coming Sunday’s game at the Detroit Lions.
A Detroit native and the Steelers’ first-round pick this past spring, Harmon has missed the past three games because of a knee injury. He missed two earlier games this season because of a separate injury.
During his weekly news conference Tuesday, Tomlin said Harmon “was probably healthy enough to play” in Monday night’s 28-15 home victory against the Miami Dolphins but was held back because of the limited practice reps leading into the game combined with Harmon’s rookie status.
Harmon practiced only once last week, and on the league-mandated injury report he was listed as a limited participant Saturday.
“As a young guy with limited rep opportunities, I didn’t think it would be fair to him or for us to put him in uniform (Monday night),” Tomlin said. “And so he’ll have an opportunity to get a complete week’s work, get an opportunity to go back to his hometown and play some football.”
Although the Steelers did a good job in limiting the impact of Dolphins running back De’Von Achane on Monday, over the first four games Harmon missed this season the Steelers were allowing almost exactly twice as many rushing yards per game than opponents were averaging in the nine games Harmon has played.
“We’re excited about getting him back,” Tomlin said. “He certainly has been an asset to us, particularly in terms of defending and stopping the run. And anticipating what we’re going to face this weekend, that’ll be big.”
In other injury updates from Tomlin, two players who started Monday night but did not finish because of injury — left guard Isaac Seumalo and outside linebacker Nick Herbig — are expected to practice in some capacity at some point this week. Neither was ruled out by Tomlin to play against the Lions.
Left tackle Andrus Peat and cornerback James Pierre are starters from the previous Steelers’ game — a win at the Baltimore Ravens — who did not play against Miami. Tomlin said Peat remains in NFL concussion protocol and Pierre (calf) will have a chance to practice to prove his readiness.
“We’ll let the protocol be our guide in terms of (Peat’s) availability,” Tomlin said.
Tomlin provided no substantiative update on the status of star outside linebacker T.J. Watt (partially collapsed lung).