Feb 24, 2016 3 min read

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Steelers General Manager Kevin Colbert made the rounds Wednesday at the NFL Scouting Combine, doing no fewer than six interviews by my count.

The biggest pieces of information he had were that center Maurkice Pouncey and running back Le’Veon Bell were making strides in their rehab, with Pouncey being ahead of Bell in the process.

That’s not surprising since Pouncey’s injury happened in training camp and Bell’s was in early November.

Pouncey is back in Pittsburgh, rehabbing every day since he’s farther along in the process. Bell, meanwhile, remains in Columbus, Ohio, doing his work because he’s not quite to the point where Pouncey is.

Colbert seemed to feel like Pouncey would be able to take part in the team’s offseason workouts at some point but said there was no real timetable on Bell’s return. I would expect him to be ready at some point in training camp, however.

But the Steelers want him at 100 percent or as close as he can now get to it. They’ll be counting on Bell to help offset the retirement last week of tight end Heath Miller.

Remember, Bell had 83 receptions in 2014 – and had 26 in just six games last season. He’ll be a big part of the passing game moving forward again, perhaps even bigger than before.

@ Colbert was asked a couple of different times if the team has any plans to release inside linebacker Lawrence Timmons who is due to count $15 million against the salary cap in 2016.

He, of course, wouldn’t answer, only saying that Timmons is a valued player on the team who is under contract and is still a good player.

It’s laughable. The Steelers have no intention of releasing Timmons.

If anything, they might extend him a year or two to help lower his cap number if necessary.

@ I was interested in talking to Stanford guard Josh Garnett today since the Steelers could be in the market for an interior lineman and Garnett, a second or third-round guy, could be a nice pickup.

Garnett said he models his game after fellow Stanford product David DeCastro and then gave one of the more interesting replies to a question about how he views blocking on the second level.

“A lot guys want to get in space against smaller, quicker guys and just want to chop down on them,” Garnett said. “You’ve got to run through them. Just run through their soul and hopefully, if you hit them, they’re going to go down. It worked out.”

Garnett hopes to be a trauma surgeon when he is done with football – he’s a human biology major – but I don’t know how you fix things when you run through someone’s soul.

Neither does he.

“I can fix the legs, I don’t know about the soul,” he said.