Jun 3, 2022 4 min read

So, now we know what’s going on with Stephon Tuitt.

Does the result make you feel any better? Certainly not about the Steelers’ chances this season, but on more than one occasion over the past nine months there have been fans screaming from the rooftops that they deserved an explanation as to what Tuitt’s plans were.

Here’s a hint for those people: You didn’t.

Tuitt doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for what has been going on in his life. He was dealing with the death of a close family member – his brother – in a still-unsolved hit-and-run incident last June.

He took the time away from football – that the Steelers granted him – to finish his degree at Notre Dame. He decided at 29 he would retire from football while he still had good health.

He doesn’t owe anyone an explanation any more than that. The Steelers were fine with his decision. They knew he was torn regarding his future playing a very violent sport, one that can rob players of quality of life later in life.

If Tuitt needed any more reminder of that, he needed only to look to the player the Steelers selected in the first round in 2014 when Tuitt was the team’s second-round pick. That would be linebacker Ryan Shazier.

Shazier was at the team’s OTA practice Thursday along with a number of other Steelers alumni, a day after Tuitt decided to call it a career.

It was another reminder – as if anyone needed one – that NFL players are human.

Tuitt made a decision that was best for him at this point in his life.

• So, what do the Steelers do now with their defensive line now that Tuitt won’t be rejoining it?

They’ll take a good, long look at things again at minicamp next week and see if they feel like they need to add to it.

But there is a feeling that Isaiahh Loudermilk, a 2021 fifth-round draft pick, is ready to take on a bigger role.

And Chris Wormley is coming off a seven-sack season while subbing for Tuitt.

They’re also getting Tyson Alualu back after he missed all but five quarters of 2021 with a fractured ankle.

Alualu, even at 35, is still a good player. And he’s incredibly durable. Until last season, he had missed three games in his 12-year career.

It might be a big ask to expect Alualu to play more than 500 snaps. He hasn’t done so since coming to the Steelers in 2017. But he did play 448 snaps in 2020.

What the Steelers do need to be concerned with is overworking Cam Heyward. He logged over 1,100 snaps, including special teams, in 2021, the most of any defensive lineman in the NFL.

Heyward is now 33. Expecting him to continue at that pace isn’t realistic.

Because of that, expect the Steelers to explore adding a veteran defensive lineman with the salary they saved with Tuitt’s retirement.

Chicago’s Eddie Goldman, Tampa Bay’s Ndamokung Suh, Linval Joseph of the Chargers or the Bengals’ Larry Ogunjobi would make sense.

Goldman and Joseph are more nose-tackle types. That might make more sense, as the Steelers could then use Alualu in a defensive end rotation.

• The Pirates swept the Dodgers this past week and took the season series from Los Angeles, 5-1.

Now, if they could just figure out how to do something similar against the Brewers, against whom they are 0-6, they might have something.

It doesn’t make a ton of sense. The Dodgers have 17 losses this season, five of which have come against the Pirates.

The Brewers, meanwhile, have nearly 20 percent of their victories against the Pirates.

• While many fans and some in the national media are focused on Kenny Pickett being the Steelers’ starting quarterback, Mitch Trubisky and Mason Rudolph have continued to work first and second on the quarterback depth chart at OTA sessions.

That’s not changing anytime soon.

That’s not a knock against Pickett. He’s doing fine.

But Trubisky and Rudolph also are throwing the ball well and showing leadership at the workouts.

It’s going to make for a very interesting training camp battle later this summer.