It’s never a good thing when you’re making a high draft pick a healthy scratch by the end of his second season. You never want that to happen, but Pittsburgh Steelers DL DeMarvin Leal’s inactive status for Thursday’s game was an indictment of his play.
Or what little he’d had lately. The coaches had been scaling back his snaps for weeks. He only played 16 defensive snaps in the four games leading up to Thursday night, which oddly happened to coincide with NT Montravius Adams’ injury.
With Adams back, Leal lost his helmet altogether. The fact that he’d barely played while Adams was absent strongly indicates this had been a long time coming.