Home Player Spotlight Shazier Has Lots of Work to Do in Order to Silence Critics

Shazier Has Lots of Work to Do in Order to Silence Critics

by Steeldad

The Pittsburgh Steelers will be without 2014 first round draft pick Ryan Shazier for the fourth straight game today and if you aren’t happy about that then you can only imagine how unhappy the Steelers must be.

Last we saw Shazier, he was racking up one of the more impressive defensive days in recent Steelers’ history. He was all over the field making tackles, recovering fumbles and picking up a sack in the win over San Francisco in the Steelers’ home opener.

He left that game in the second half with what appeared to be a stinger. We then learned there may have been some nerve damage and that’s what was keeping him out of action. By week three of his current absence, questions were everywhere about why he wasn’t playing.

Steelers’ Head Coach Mike Tomlin has in most cases stuck to his ‘standard’ that if a player isn’t fully practicing then he won’t play. Prior today’s game, Shazier was a limited participant all week in practice and that certainly wasn’t good enough for Tomlin.

As I pointed out last week, Shazier did the one thing you just can’t do in this day and age – he took his frustrations to social media. It appears he didn’t learn much from that because he did it again this week.

I don’t know about you but those two tweets sound like a guy who is frustrated and is tired of people like me questioning him. Unfortunately, this is the world we live in and Shazier is in a world where second-guessing is as natural as going to the bathroom.

One of the worst kept secrets throughout the Steelers’ training camp this past summer was that both Vince Williams and Sean Spence were frustrated because Shazier was getting the snaps despite their feeling that they were out-playing him.

Talk to enough people who know what they are watching and they’ll tell you that Williams and Spence weren’t wrong. They were both very good in camp but then again, neither was a first round draft pick either. The comments that were streaming out of camp often included the word “soft” and that term hasn’t gone away.

For all the talk that Jarvis Jones, the first round pick of 2013, is a bust, he’s actually been on the field more than Shazier has. Granted, he has one more year of NFL experience but believe it or not, Jones has been on the field more.

Of a possible 37 NFL games played, Jones has played in 26 games. That’s roughly 70%. Shazier meanwhile has played in just 11 of a possible 21 games which is 52%. If you argued that Shazier’s impact on games he plays in is greater than Jones, you’d get no argument from me.

The problem is that you don’t make plays from the training room and as much as Jones has disappointed in terms of pressure on the QB, he’s done a good job against the run.

But this isn’t about Jones who by the way is questionable today, it’s about Shazier. The longer he stays out and the more often he takes to social media the more people will question him. The only way to answer the critics is to get back on the field and stay there.

photo courtesy steelers.com

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1 comment

Ben Anderson October 19, 2015 - 6:05 pm

Based on what we saw this year, if Williams and Spence thought they were outplaying Shazier, they have a higher opinion of their play than I do.
That said, I agree with you in as much as there is no way that Shazier can earn his teammates respect, much less demand it, if he is not out on the field and he won’t get out on the field until he starts practicing.
Tomlin describing Shazier’s injuries as “a bob boo” tells you what he thinks of Shazier not practicing.

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