News:

 Last week in Detroit, the Steelers continued the trend of explosive offense and late game defensive swoon.  To be considered a top team, the Steelers need to put teams away convincingly.

The running game and play of the O-line continued to look good, although a step down performance-wise from the previous week.  The Steelers are creating a lot of fumbles, they’re just not recovering the ball most of the time.  If the breaks start to go the other way, this team could be perceived as much better.

 Personnel notes:

 Aaron Smith injured his rotator cuff last week.  He was placed on IR and is done for the season.  The team, re-signed Ra’Shon “Sunny” Harris from the Carolina practice squad.  Harris was a player that the Steelers liked coming out of training camp.  Carolina claimed him off of waivers and subsequently signed him to their practice squad. 

 While losing Smith is a big blow, the results should not be nearly as bad as they were in 2007 when Smith was injured late in the season.  Since that time, Tomlin has made it a point to rotate the ends.  Eason and Kirschke have looked quite good in relief.  The silver lining to the injury is that next year the team will have two young promising ends with a year of experience each.  The team has purportedly looked in to working out Orpheus Roye as a potential option as well.  Hopefully Harris can impress and continue the youth movement on the line.  With Smith out, Kirschke, Eason and first round pick Ziggy Hood will fill in by committee.  Kirschke has had some stiffness in his back so he may be limited as well.

 In good news, Willie Parker and Troy Polamalu are practicing this week and should knock the rust off against Cleveland come Sunday.

 Positional Analysis — Guards:

 Starter Chris Kemoeatu:  Kemo is an absolute behemoth at 6-3, 340lb.  He struggled last year understanding assignments.  He also oddly struggled at physically imposing his will on opponents particularly in run blocking.  This year, he’s shown some improvement and has looked quite good pulling at times.  If he continues to improve through this season, he’ll be a quality guard.  Kemo signed a 5 year $20 million contract extension before the season so he’s locked in for a while.  His signing bonus was only $4 million, so he wouldn’t be a cap burden if cut.  Kemoeatu has crazy Samoan hair to rival Polamalu incidentally.

 Starter Trai Essex:  Essex has been a Steeler backup for 5 years.  He’s filled in at Left Tackle previously and performed well.  When Darnell Stapleton went down in the preseason, Essex became the de-facto winner of the position battle between the two.  Partnered with Willie Colon, the right side of the line has been very productive in Run blocking this year.

 IR  Darnell Stapleton:  Stapleton filled in for the injured Kendall Simmons last year.  Stapleton was clearly a backup level talent although to be fair it was only his second season.  He has extra value to the team as a backup center.

 Backup  Doug Legursky:  Similar to Stapleton, second year man Legursky is a Guard/Center for the Steelers.  He filled in for Hartwig at center in week one and looked pretty good.  He also saw a few plays in relief of Essex last week.  He’s a powerful player who hasn’t disappointed thus far.

 Backup Ramon Foster:  An undrafted free agent pickup out of Tennessee this year, Foster impressed with his dominating run blocking.   He’s been a game day active, backing up at tackle and left guard.

 Inactive Kraig Urbik:  A third round draft pick out of Wisconsin, Urbik is basically taking a year to develop and strengthen up at this point.  In camp he had some issues in one on one blocking but that may not be such an issue as guards are expected to “fight in a phone booth” so to speak.