Sep 12, 2016 2 min read

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Greetings from sunny Washington, D.C., where the Steelers will open the 2016 season against the Redskins.

The weather here is perfect and the field is in great shape.

The Steelers, however, are not.

We now know that Markus Wheaton (shoulder) and Roosevelt Nix (back) will not play tonight for the Steelers. That hurts, especially considering the team is already without Le’Veon Bell for the first three games.

With Wheaton out, the Steelers are going to need Sammie Coates to show up in a big way. I expect Eli Rogers to perform well. But Coates is the X factor. He had an up-and-down preseason but needs to be consistent tonight.

I expect the Steelers to lean heavily on running back DeAngelo Williams. Washington’s run defense was, well, pretty bad in 2015 and adding Ziggy Hood to the mix isn’t going to have dramatic effects on that.

With Wheaton out, the Redskins can key their entire pass defense scheme to shutting down Antonio Brown. But if the Steelers run the ball effectively, Washington won’t be able to key completely on Brown.

Pittsburgh showed off an extremely potent no-huddle offensive attack in preseason week three at New Orleans with its starting unit. But with Wheaton and Bell not playing in this one, I don’t know how much no-huddle the team can effectively run. Those two guys are a big part of it and while Williams is a competent replacement as a runner, he’s nowhere near the class of receiver that Bell is.

And with Coates and Rogers, a pair of second-year receivers, out there, they don’t have the rapport with Ben Roethlisberger that Wheaton does.

So expect the Steelers to try to run the ball 30 or so times in this game. That serves two purposes. It keeps the chains moving and, perhaps more importantly, keeps Washington’s offense on the sidelines.

That doesn’t mean the Steelers won’t do some no-huddle. I just don’t expect as much of it this week as we will see moving forward.