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Rudulph, other injured players return to practice

By Jim Wexell for The 5 min read

PITTSBURGH — Rosie Nix didn’t want to talk much about his return to the practice field. He preferred pointing to his new, white ball cap hanging in his locker that read:

“Make Fullbacks Great Again”

Nix wasn’t wearing it, but had a big smile.

“It’s going good,” the Steelers fullback said after his first practice of the season. “Hopefully, I can just do my job and help the team.”

Coming out of the bye, the Steelers are getting healthy. As James Washington said after practicing Monday, a day after the Steelers enjoyed their bye weekend, “It was perfect timing.”

Nix and Washington are back, and, according to Terrell Edmunds, so was Steven Nelson.

Some of the older veterans remained out — still seven days before the next game — but dressed and worked on the sideline with Jaylen Samuels.

Yes, Samuels, the back who’s expected to miss another couple of weeks, was running sprints on another field.

“They said a month and it’s been two weeks,” Samuels said. “I feel good. Still got some swelling in my knee, so I have to keep icing. I’m taking my time, getting it right.”

Yes, the Steelers are getting healthy, but of course they’ll continue to miss quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

At least the backup quarterback returned to work Monday.

“We’ve got a great plan,” Mason Rudolph said of next Monday night’s game against the Miami Dolphins. “I think we had a great plan the last few weeks.”

Rudolph had been asked about opening up the offense, and explained that, “I’m always an aggressive guy. I want to take the ball down the field, push the ball down the field and take shots, but I think you’ve got to take what’s available. If that’s a checkdown, or if that’s a go ball, if that’s what’s available then that’s what you’ve got to do.

“Yes, we need to open up the offense a little bit, but we also don’t need to force balls if someone’s sitting right there. James Conner or Jaylen Samuels or Benny Snell can advance the ball and move the chains.”

Regardless of the offensive philosophy, Rudolph’s return was the big news — especially to those who saw him flat on his back and out cold after taking a brutal Earl Thomas helmet shot to the jaw two weeks ago against the Baltimore Ravens.

“The next morning I felt fine,” Rudolph said. “I had a minor headache that night but the next morning I started to really come back. I slept really great. I never really had any symptoms, like sensitivity to light. I only had one concussion prior to it, in high school, so, yeah, started feeling pretty good the next day and carried out all the testing, physically, and the mental stuff on the computer.”

Rudolph said he wanted to play against the Chargers, “because I’m a competitor and I like to feel like I know my body, but the thought process from the specialist was you take a lesser hit and you could be out for longer and you could really do damage. I was just more vulnerable at that point. It was the opinion of the specialist, and so I didn’t really have a choice. Obviously, I wanted to. I think I’ll look back at this 10 years down the road and I’ll be glad I did sit out for a week, but I was not happy at the moment.”

Rudolph said he felt Thomas coming, but later admitted he has no recollection of the play.

“I did not remember the play at all,” he said. “It was weird. I had to kind of go back and ask the coach what was the play called, because for some reason just that play, it was kind of blank. But everything before and after is clear as day.”

He said his memory takes him to the locker room after the hit, but he wanted to make a point about walking off the field instead of taking a cart.

“I didn’t wave them off,” he said. “When I was on the ground they kind of made me move my arms and legs and made sure I didn’t have any kind of spinal cord injury. I guess there were plenty of memes about the cart not working, but I wouldn’t have needed to be in the cart because I passed all the tests on the ground. I would’ve walked up regardless of whether the cart was operational or not.

“I passed the tests on the ground and I was able to walk off, so of course I wanted to. I wouldn’t have wanted to take a ride if I didn’t have to.”

He also wanted to address Thomas’ assertion that Rudolph didn’t acknowledge his apology.

“I don’t know whether there was a miscommunication, but I responded to him,” Rudolph said. “Justice Hill, a running back from Oklahoma State, I made sure Justice knew that I did respond to him. I appreciate him reaching out and doing the classy thing.”

The Steelers didn’t have to release an injury report Monday, so the complete list of injured players isn’t available. Reserve OLB Anthony Chickillo was told to stay home as the league sorts through his legal issues from the weekend. Chickillo was allegedly involved in an altercation with a female acquaintance at a nearby casino.

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