Steelers 2-a-days: RB Alfonzo Graham takes his shot, but is it OL Kendrick Green’s final shot?
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Editor’s note: From the end of minicamp through the day the team reports to training camp at Saint Vincent College, the Trib will be running through the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 90-man roster, assessing each player’s outlook for the 2023 season. The breakdown will go through the roster in mostly-alphabetical order, (at least) two per day, between June 16 and July 26. Contract data courtesy spotrac.com.
RB ALFONZO GRAHAM
Experience: Rookie
Contract status: $750,000 cap hit if he makes the team in 2023
2023 outlook: Graham was signed from a pool of 33 players who were attending the Steelers’ rookie minicamp on a tryout basis early last month. The 5-foot-9, 180-pound Graham played his final two college seasons for Morgan State on the FCS level. In 2022, he had a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference-most 1,150 rushing yards and scored nine touchdowns while averaging 5.9 yards per carry. He also returned kickoffs and played on some special-teams coverage units for Morgan State, a school in his native Baltimore. Before arriving at Morgan State in 2020, he’d previously been at a trio of junior colleges.
Graham perhaps gained the notice of Steelers general manager Omar Khan while Khan was on hand at the HBCU combine in New Orleans in February. He joins Darius Hagans — another rookie from a small-school program (Division II) — in a running backs group of six competing at Steelers training camp. Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren are the headliners, with Anthony McFarland Jr. and Jason Huntley also on the roster as backs who have a little NFL experience.
Kendrick Green, the man who last summer said, "I didn’t really like playing center," is…
.. you guessed it, back at center. Exclusively.Some interesting things he had to say-https://t.co/Z7hKe764DN
— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) May 31, 2023
OL KENDRICK GREEN
Experience: 3rd season
Contract status: $1.33 million cap hit in 2023, signed through 2024
2023 outlook: Green, who has been upfront about preferring playing guard over center, is back at center this summer after he was in a camp competition to be a starting guard last year — the year after he was the Steelers’ starting center as a rookie.
It’s been that kind of NFL career so far for Green, who during this camp probably is on his final chance to be an impact player for the Steelers. That’s quite a fast fall for a player who started each of the Steelers’ first 15 games when he was a rookie third-round pick in 2021. But Green was on the bench — by coaches’ decision — for the Steelers’ playoff game that year. Then, the Steelers signed a new starting center in Mason Cole in March 2022. Then, Green that summer lost an open camp competition to start at left guard. He was not activated for any regular-season game last fall.
Now that the Steelers signed a pair of starting-caliber interior offensive linemen in free agency, Green seems to be facing an uphill battle just to stay on the roster. His best hope is that as the only player aside from Cole with NFL center experience, no one else shows they can be trusted as a backup center. But even that scenario leaves Green playing a position he openly said he didn’t like playing.
Green wasn’t a star in 2021, but his rookie tape shows he’s not out of place in the NFL, either. But, barring something unforeseen in the coming weeks, the writing appears on the wall that if Green has an NFL revival that it will likely come with another organization.
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