The Pittsburgh Steelers celebrated their fifth-straight win in Week 11 to move ahead to 8-2 in the 2017 NFL season. Unfortunately, they got a bit of bad news on Monday after the NFL announced the four-game suspension of starting right tackle Marcus Gilbert for violating the league's performance-enhancing drug policy.
As a result, the Steelers will now have to lean on backup right tackle Chris Hubbard in the meantime. Needless to say, head coach Mike Tomlin does not expect to see any drop-off in Gilbert's absence.
According to Joe Rutter of triblive.com:
“Sometimes you’re faced with adversity and the things that you do in terms of how you respond define you,” Tomlin said. “Thankfully for us, Chris Hubbard playing is nothing new for us. He’s played a lot this year. He’s done an awesome job of upholding the standard.”
While it is encouraging to see Tomlin's faith in the undrafted man out of UAB, the loss of Marcus Gilbert undoubtedly deals a huge blow to what has been one of the most productive run-blocking units in football. That said, it will likely be on two-time Pro Bowl guard David DeCastro to pick up the slack on the right side.
Tomlin also exuded the same kind of confidence in backup lineman B.J. Finney as well should Hubbard fail to meet the standard. Gilbert will not be eligible to return until Week 16 versus the Houston Texans.
Only time will tell how impacting this suspension ends up being for Pittsburgh this season. For right now, it does hurt the team's offensive line depth at the very least.
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