Good morning,
    The Steelers just acquired a center in Fernando Velasco, who started 16 games for the Tennessee Titans last year, 13 at center and who has been a center since he entered the year. Yet Mike Tomlin says tight end/guard/tackle Kelvin Beachum will start at center Monday?
      I don’t get that. Beachum turned in a remarkable performance last Sunday but he’s not a center and they need him elsewhere. Velasco has time to learn the terminology enough that he can make the snap and the block. They need Beachum out to defend the edge, you know, the one where James Harrison hopes to crash through and get to Roethlisberger.
    You saw how those tackles played against Tennessee. Wait until they see a real defensive front in Cincinnati. Maybe they should go with double tight ends on the each side.
Having said that, the coaches seem determined to get Beachum ready to start at center in Cincinnati Monday.
--- Onto some stuff:
 So now a Steelers assistant coach is not allowed to be out having a beer with his wife without being harrassed by some drunken punks who had first gotten his autograph? Nice.
 --- This is the final wakeup call for Jonathan Dwyer. He was cut for the first time in his professional career and now he needs to buckle down and do his job.
 --- Heath Miller won’t play Monday. Coaches panic, I’ve seen them, including the great Chuck Noll. But I don’t think they are in such a state that they would risk playing Miller too soon.
 --- If Kelvin Beachum does play center, perhaps Guy Whimper can play tight end. Next man up, right?
 --- James Harrison has a “chip on his shoulder” because the Steelers released him? Please. You can say the Steelers did Harrison wrong by demanding he take a paycut from his scheduled $6.57 million salary. There would be no such discussion if this were baseball or the NHL because those salaries are all guaranteed.
However, this is the NFL and as everyone knows – supposedly, Harrison included – those salaries are not guaranteed unless, you know, they are guaranteed. Harrison had to know they would ask him to take a paycut; the media was talking about that a full year before it happened. That they still offered him nearly $4 million to return to play in 2012. He refused.  
    Later, he came back to them to see if they were interested, but they told him they moved on. So Harrison, rejected by Baltimore, signed for much less money in Cincinnati, where he will receive $4.45 million over two years, provided he’s still playing in 2014 to pick up that second year.
   He also had to up and move from a place where he’s lived for a decade and play in an entirely different defensive scheme, a 4-3, and play on the strong side, not the weak side.
 Pride led the way for Harrison in this deal, and it’s  happened to many other players, including Rod Woodson, who turned down the Steelers offer to take a smaller one in San Francisco for a year.       
--- YOU: They neglected the line in the draft especially the year they picked RM at one.Who was going to block for him.Pouncey's overrated and hopefully DeCastro develops.This team is what it is, it does under achieve IMO. Why did they not take a 3 for Manny? Art needs to step back and get the Jerry Jones out of his system.It's not Arians or Haley it's the players.
ME: They did neglect the line in the draft, I agree, but that changed in 2010 when they drafted Maurkice Pouncey in the first round and followed by using another first-rounder and two second-rounders on linemen through the 2012 draft. All those players are starters, i.e. until Pouncey’s season ended. They also used a seventh-rounder in 2012 who now either is their starting center or figures in at every other position along the line, including tight end.
  --- YOU: Like nearly everyone else I bemoan the falloff in the Steelers' running game. But why do we care? Before last year there was only one season in Tomlin's tenure when the Steelers were ranked in the bottom third in the league in rushing: 2008, when they were 23rd (according to nfl.com). And we all know how that season turned out. And the only previous time in his tenure they didn't have a winning season, 2006, they were in the top third of the league in rushing (10th). Are we all just living in the 1970s, and should accept that while great defense may remain an integral part of how the Steelers win, when they do,
rushing just isn't all that important to the 21st century Steelers?
ME: I don’t know that I care so much, but they do and that’s what matters. Plus, do you really want defenses teeing off on Ben Roethlisberger behind that line, knowing they won’t or can’t run?

First Published: April 6, 2016, 4:14 p.m.