Practice squad players in the NFL can be as interchangeable as car parts.
Facing a left-footed punter this week? Better add a left-footed punter to the practice squad to prepare, and then drop him from it after the game. The team next on the schedule has a mobile starting quarterback? Someone to replicate him in practice is a must.
This is, after all, a practice squad, and what better way to use it than to have it help maximize the preparation for the next opponent?
Teams can keep up to 10 players on this scout squad. In short, those players can practice with their team like normal, but cannot play in games. A player cannot go on the practice squad if they spent a full-year with their club, or spent three seasons on a practice squad. Other teams can also sign players off another team’s practice squad to their own 53-man roster.
But the practice squad is more than just adding someone to help with that week’s practice to then just be thrown out like an old tire. Teams also stash players that they want to continue to develop, but don’t have room for on the 53-man roster.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are no exception to this rule. Cut draft picks, higher upside undrafted free agents and cut players from other teams they had their eyes on make up the bulk of this group. But practice squad rosters are very fluid – the Steelers already have had 17 players on theirs this season before playing a down of meaningful football, seven of whom already released from it – and even if a player can last a full season on it they rarely make it with the big club, James Harrison notwithstanding.
Here is a by-the-numbers look at the practice squad in the Mike Tomlin era:
121 – The total number of players on the Steelers’ practice squad since 2007.
46 – The number of players that at one point or another had a stint on both the Steelers’ practice squad and 53-man roster during this time. Brian St. Pierre and Carey Davis could be included, though both were only on the Steelers’ practice squad when Bill Cowher was head coach.
18 – The total amount of players the Steelers had on their practice squad in 2014. Compare that to nine in 2010.
17 – The amount of draft picks under Tomlin that have been on the Steelers’ practice squad. Eight never played a down with the Steelers, not including Anthony Chickillo and Doran Grant who still remain with the team. Only Ryan Mundy from this group spent more than a season on the 53-man roster.
9 – The total number of players that lasted a full season or more on the Steelers’ 53-man roster: Patrick Bailey, Mundy, Doug Legursky, Isaac Redman, Steve McLendon, Al Woods, Derek Moye, Terence Garvin and Chris Hubbard. Ross Ventrone and Alejandro Villanueva will attempt to make this list in 2015. Gary Russell could be considered, though he spent a year on the active roster before going to the practice squad.
2 –The Steelers have had two starters from 2007 to the present that once spent time on their practice squad: McLendon at defensive tackle and Legursky at guard. This does not include Redman, Mundy or Woods, who started only as injury replacements.
So judging by those numbers, it has been a rarity since Tomlin took over as Steelers head coach in 2007 for a practice squad player to have any longevity. Some players like Tyler Grisham and Da’Mon Cromartie-Smith spent multiple years on the taxi squad but could not crack the roster once their eligibility ran out. Others like Mortty Ivy and Jamie McCoy spent an entire season being shuffled between the practice squad and active roster.
Many former draft picks that spent time on the practice squad failed to stick and ended up signing with other teams, such as Frank Summers, A.Q. Shipley and Toney Clemons.
It can be easy to get excited by who the Steelers add to their practice squad, because that player is just a step away from being on the active roster. But as recent history shows, most of those players are just like a piece of cardboard used as a temporary car window, rather than a brand new pane of glass that will last for years.
