James Harrison Not Expected To Play In Steelers-Raiders Game

Harrison’s return would end his recovery from a surgically repaired knee that has forced him to miss Pittsburgh’s first three games of the regular season. The nine-year veteran returned to practice last Tuesday, but a few setbacks forced the Steelers to slowly bring him along.

The return of both players will be welcomed, as entering Week 5 the Steelers are ranked 30th in the league in quarterback sacks – in four of his last five seasons, Harrison has tallied double-digit sack totals. Both Harrison and Polamalu should upgrade the Steelers’ pass rush and coverage tremendously.

After arthroscopic knee surgery on Aug. 15, Harrison missed all of the Steelers’ practices until Tuesday when he participated in his first full practice since the surgery. It didn’t go well: Harrison had hoped to participate in practice again Wednesday, but instead left the Steelers’ training facility with the knee bothering him.

Harrison is still recovering from knee surgery, and has yet to see any action in 2012. The Steelers do not know when he will be back.

Polamalu played in Week 1, and injured his calf. After sitting out last week, he has still not returned to practice.

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Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin alluded to the possibility of Harrison playing against the Jets this weekend. Before last week’s game against the Broncos, Harrison called himself a game-time decision but was not able to go.

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Peyton Manning and the new-look Broncos offense will no doubt be relieved to miss out on Harrison in the prime time matchup on Sunday night. The two teams will kick off the 2012 NFL season at 8:20 p.m. ET at Sports Authority Field at Mile High in Denver.

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Thursday, however, was a different story, according to Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

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Harrison, who underwent arthroscopic surgery knee surgery last week and hasn’t seen the practice field during training camp, says he just needs a few days of practice to be set to play. However, it’s still unclear when the five-time Pro Bowler will be able to return to the field after suffering the setback a week ago.

If the 34-year-old cannot go in the season opener, it does leave a big hole to fill for the Steelers defense, which will look for Chris Carter to fill the void.

The Steelers haven’t put a timetable on his return quite yet, as they want to see how the knee responds, but head coach Mike Tomlin did tell the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that it “shouldn’t be long.”

The Post-Gazette story goes on to say that the Steelers had hoped rest would cure the injury, but the team believes that Harrison may have went harder than he should have during the rehab process and actually injured his knee further.

However, with news of a surgery the Steelers could be forced to wait longer for their pass-rushing linebacker and might be put in a situation where they could possible cut him to save about $5.6 million.

From 2007-10, Harrison, who’s now 30-years-old, missed only one game.

Regardless of whether surgery is needed, the Steelers feel he will be ready for their season opener next month. Bires spoke with Harrison’s agent, Bill Parise, who indicated the Steelers may take him off the PUP list in the next couple weeks and if things don’t go smoothly in practice, they’ll opt for the scope. Parise also stated Harrison is perhaps the healthiest he’s been in three years, and he’s confident his client will be ready for the opener, via Bires:

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