It was always going to be an uphill battle for Pittsburgh Steelers’ seventh-round pick Eli Heidenreich to make the team’s 53-man roster. Working in a crowded running back room, Heidenreich had to really stand out to make the roster, and so far, that’s yet to happen. He dealt with an injury that sidelined him for numerous practices and played solid, if unspectacular, in the preseason opener. Ahead of Pittsburgh’s second preseason game, Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette gave Heidenreich a 5% chance to make the roster.
“Barring an injury, like 5%,” Fittipaldo said on The Pomp & Joe Show on 93.7 The Fan.
It’s not a surprise that Heidenreich has virtually no chance to make the roster. As a seventh-round pick, the odds were working against him in a running back room that features Rico Dowdle, Jaylen Warren and Travis Homer, who has special teams value. Lew Nichols has also impressed, while Kaleb Johnson is in the mix but, like Heidenreich, doesn’t seem to have much of a shot at making the roster.
One thing Heidenreich does have is versatility. He can line up out wide and catch the football; he can play special teams, and he can obviously carry the ball. There are still two preseason games left, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility for Heidenreich to find a way to earn a job. It’s going to take a lot, but his ability to wear a lot of hats should help, and if he can put together a big play or big game, there could be more consideration to keeping him around.
But numbers elsewhere don’t help his case. If the Steelers keep four quarterbacks, running back could be a position where they keep only three players. If they keep four, it’s easier to see a path for Heidenreich if he can outplay Nichols in the next two preseason games and practice well, but only keeping three would make it extremely difficult for Heidenreich to crack the roster.
5% seems like a spot-on representation of where things stand right now, but maybe that changes if he can play well against the Jets tonight. Mike McCarthy emphasized earlier this week that the team wanted to get the young players as involved as possible, and that could bode well for Heidenreich. But it’s still going to take a really strong next few weeks for him to find himself on the 53-man roster.
