Steelers resting more than Ben Roethlisberger against the Browns

The Pittsburgh Steelers are preparing for the Cleveland Browns at the end of the regular season in Week 17 on the shores of Lake Eerie, and as this game is meaningless to the Steelers, you knew that Mike Tomlin would give some players a rest.

During his press conference on Tuesday, Tomlin said that only one player would have the week off, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

“If we have the opportunity to send one or two players into the postseason, we will go.” Said Tomlin. “Ben [Roethlisberger] I won’t be playing this week. Let’s turn to Mason Rudolph in our positional group of young defenders and give these guys a chance. We will potentially look at the rest of some other guys in terms of making them inactive, but the number of these guys and who these guys are will be determined as we go through the week. The player’s availability determines this. Several players lost the game last week due to injuries, guys like Marcus Allen, Ola [Adeniyni], [Chris] Boswell et al. The ability of these players to come back and be available to us really dictates the number of people we are willing to do that with. The only people I’m willing to acknowledge right now are that Ben will not be playing. “

The health of some players is more important than individual statistics, or even a 13th win of the season, and because of that, it is being reported that the Steelers will be resting more players than just Roethlisberger in Week 17. This by Gerry Dulac from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Players who are also supposed to be able to end the game will be:

OLB TJ Watt
C Maurkice Pouncey
DE Cam Heyward

There will certainly be contingents from the Steelers’ fan base who will be upset that players like Joe Haden or Stephon Tuitt also don’t get the game, but you can expect Mike Tomlin to lead this game almost like a pre-season game. In other words, the Steelers could have had Haden start the game, but eventually gave in to Cameron Sutton or Justin Layne to allow him to rest for the rest of the game.

Anyway, these are the players who are supposed to end the game this Sunday at the FirstEnergy stadium. Stay tuned to BTSC for the latest news and notes on black and gold as they prepare for the end of the season and the AFC Wild Card round.