Joe Rutter stories, Page 28

The Pittsburgh Steelers are losing their senior defensive assistant/linebackers coach after one season. Brian Flores, who joined the Steelers staff last offseason after being fired as head coach of the Miami Dolphins, accepted a position with the Minnesota Vikings as defensive coordinator Monday. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin added Flores to...

T.J. Watt won’t participate in this year’s Pro Bowl games so he can recover from injuries that nagged him during the 2022 season. Buffalo Bills linebacker Matt Milano will replace the Steelers outside linebacker, who missed most of the first half of the season with a torn pectoral muscle. He...

Mike Tomlin has two years remaining on his contract as coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, which historically is when he is in line to receive an extension. An exception occurred in 2021 when he was heading into the last year of his deal, and team president Art Rooney II gave...

The way the Pittsburgh Steelers offense in general and rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett in particular finished the 2022 season were factors in the organization retaining offensive coordinator Matt Canada for another year. Given those strides the Steelers made, team president Art Rooney II said Thursday he didn’t want to start...

Out of football since 2019, Ray Horton wasn’t itching to return to the sideline. Horton, the former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive backs coach, was content with the life he created in Phoenix. A private pilot, he took to the air to fly his Cirrus single-engine plane as often as his free...

The Pittsburgh Maulers aren’t returning home just yet, but they will play their games at a destination much closer than their venue last season. The Maulers will play games at Tom Benson Stadium in Canton, Ohio, for the 2023 season, the USFL announced Wednesday. Last year, in the spring football...

The Pittsburgh Steelers are bringing back one of their own. The Steelers signed outside linebacker Quincy Roche, their sixth-round draft pick in 2021, to a reserve/futures contract on Tuesday. Roche spent the past two seasons with the New York Giants, who claimed the linebacker on waivers after he was cut...

Former Penn State wide receiver Dan Chisena is returning to his home state. After spending the past three seasons in the Minnesota Vikings organization, the 25-year-old wide receiver from Downingtown signed a reserve/futures contract Monday with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Chisena, who is 6-foot-3, 202 pounds, spent last season primarily on...

As far as Ben Roethlisberger is concerned, the record speaks for itself when it comes to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ decision to retain Matt Canada as offensive coordinator. In an interview Thursday on 102.5 FM, Roethlisberger said he wasn’t surprised to learn Canada will return for a third season overseeing the...

Matt Canada will get at least one more year to oversee the development of the Pittsburgh Steelers offense. Canada will return for a third season as the Steelers offensive coordinator, a team spokesman confirmed Wednesday. Canada’s return comes after the Steelers finished No. 26 in scoring in 2022, averaging 18.1...

The way the Pittsburgh Steelers defense finished the season, it provided justification for all of the money earmarked to that side of the football. Heralded as the highest-paid defense in the NFL, the Steelers got some bang for their buck in the second half when a 7-2 finish and four...

Minkah Fitzpatrick continues to pull in the hardware. The Pittsburgh Steelers free safety was named to the AP All-Pro first team Friday for the third time in his NFL career. Fitzpatrick also made the first-team list in the 2019 and 2020 seasons. He was the only Steelers player to earn...

The easiest way for the Pittsburgh Steelers to return to the playoffs in 2023 is to take an approach coach Mike Tomlin didn’t use this season. He needs to have his established starting quarterback under center from the first snap of the opener. He didn’t take that route with Kenny...

Emotions were mixed inside the Pittsburgh Steelers’ locker room Sunday. The elation of winning a fourth consecutive game was tempered by the reality that the Steelers’ season won’t be extended into the playoffs. Despite a 28-14 victory against the Cleveland Browns that improved the Steelers’ record to 9-8, they fell...

Just when it looked as if the Pittsburgh Steelers might shuffle off to Buffalo for the most unlikely of playoff appearances, they had their hopes gutted Sunday with the ferocity of Lucy yanking a football away from Charlie Brown. The Steelers held up their end of the bargain with a...

The Pittsburgh Steelers don’t know yet whether they will earn the No. 7 seed in the AFC playoffs. They do know where they will be playing if they get there. The Steelers will travel to Buffalo and face the Bills if everything breaks their way Sunday. Based on Kansas City’s...

Coach Mike Tomlin said the Pittsburgh Steelers offense, and by extension rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett, grew up during that last-minute touchdown drive against the Las Vegas Raiders on Christmas Eve. If that’s the case, then Tomlin was hardly surprised when Pickett led the offense to another last-minute touchdown the following...

The odds of the Pittsburgh Steelers making the playoffs a month ago were so infinitesimal that the sportsbooks would have laughed off such a wager. A loss to the Baltimore Ravens had dropped the Steelers’ record to 5-8 and left no margin for error. The Steelers needed to win their...

Before Myles Jack joined the Pittsburgh Steelers this year, he was probably best known around these parts for helping the Jacksonville Jaguars to an upset win in the 2017 AFC divisional playoffs. His interception in the first quarter led to a touchdown that helped the Jaguars take a 14-point lead...

Outside linebacker Alex Highsmith is the newest addition to the Pittsburgh Steelers injury report, as he was limited in practice Thursday with an ankle injury. Highsmith is tied for eighth in the NFL with 12 sacks. Four starters did not practice for the third day in a row: free safety...

Cameron Heyward was at Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium five years ago when Ryan Shazier’s NFL career ended with a spinal cord injury that left the Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker temporarily paralyzed. Heyward and his teammates — a handful remain on the roster from that 2017 season — had to regroup and return...

Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Levi Wallace spent one of his four seasons with the Buffalo Bills occupying the same position room as Damar Hamlin. That was in 2021 when Hamlin was a sixth-round draft pick out of Pitt. Wallace was in his final season in Buffalo, but in Hamlin he saw...

There was no shortage of medical personnel on hand Monday night when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed after going into cardiac arrest in the first quarter of a game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Paycor Stadium. Hamlin, a McKees Rocks native who attended Central Catholic and Pitt before entering...

Calling it a “really personal thing” because of their Pittsburgh ties, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin spoke about his “respect and love” for Damar Hamlin, the former Central Catholic and Pitt star who is in critical condition after going into cardiac arrest during an NFL game Monday night. Hamlin, 24, was...

By winning three in a row and six of their past eight games, the Pittsburgh Steelers are in position to compete for a playoff spot on the final weekend of the regular season. Of course, they haven’t clinched one — and might not even with a win Sunday — because...