Steelers News: Shazier, Williams, Batch
By Kim Myers
The Steelers draft picks have been made and the offseason workout program is in full swing.
Steelers season never truly ends for Steeler Nation so while the team starts to put in the work to prepare for the 2016 NFL season we’ll be busy looking for mentions of your Black & Gold so we’ve got you covered. Here’s your Steelers Morning Huddle for Sunday, May 15th.
Numbers game
Few NFL players get the chance to keep their college numbers and play with them on their team. The NFL’s rules about which position wears which numbers and the retired numbers on a team usually prevents that from happening.
Teresa Varley tells us Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier’s story about how he became No. 50 for Pittsburgh. A combination of the number ranges to pick from for linebackers, the linebacker numbers that are off limits, the number he wore in college and some math led him to No. 50.
Now that he has it, he wouldn’t change it for anything.
Man of his word
DeAngelo Williams is a lot of things. One of them is a man of his word. Two years removed from playing in Charlotte for the Carolina Panthers, Williams still kept his promise to provide 53 free mammograms to women in the Charlotte area who are low-income, non-insured or under-insured. He provides 53 to represent the years his mother, Sandra, lived until breast cancer took her life in 2014.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler explains that Williams hosted a similar event in Pittsburgh during the 2015 season, will host the same event in Memphis, where he went to school and also in Jonesboro, Ark (where his mother had chemotherapy).
You can visit The DeAngelo Williams Foundation website to learn more about how you can help contribute to the cause of eradicating breast cancer.
As far as Big Ben can take ‘em
Everybody loves Charlie Batch. The Former Steelers backup quarterback has stayed in his hometown of Pittsburgh to work as a commentator for KDKA and the Steelers Radio Network. USA Today’s Steelers Wire Dani Bostick has Batch’s Steelers 2016 outlook, and it’s a positive one.
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He explains that the Steelers can go as far as Ben Roethlisberger’s arm can take them. That the addition of Artie Burns and a healthy Senquez Golson will revitalize the secondary and that nose tackle Daniel McCullers is primed to have a breakout season. I think Batch might be onto something.