Looking ahead to the session …
• What: Steelers practice
• When: 10:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
• Where: Rooney Sports Complex
• Media availability: 12:30-1 p.m.
3:05: Add James Harrison to the mystery illness club. Harrison was MIA at the Steelers' practice on Friday as he missed the day with an illness for the second time this season.
Of course, Harrison told me two weeks ago that he was unhappy with the fact he wasn't playing this season and did not appear in the Steelers' 27-24 loss to New England last Sunday despite dressing for the game.
Martavis Bryant also has taken a day off on three different occasions for illness and was soundly ripped for it.
Guard Ramon Foster was a partial participant at practice Friday as he tries to get out of concussion protocol. Expect Foster to be a full participant on Saturday. He was joined as a partial participant by Coty Sensabaugh, who was limited with a shoulder injury.
Joe Haden, Tyler Matakevich and Vance McDonald were full participants.
Antonio Brown, who has already been declared out for Monday's game because of what Mike Tomlin called a calf contusion, did not practice.
10:30 a.m.: Al Riveron, the NFL's senior VP of officiating, spoke to the media Thursday regarding the decision to overturn Jesse James' potential game-winning touchdown catch last Sunday against the New England Patriots that was overturned by official review.
“In this situation, it was not necessarily a football move,” Riveron said, according to a transcript provided by the league. “It was going to the ground. Any time you’re going to the ground, whether it’s on your own, whether you’re contacted by an opponent, or whether you’re contacted by a teammate, you must survive the ground. What does that mean? That means once you make initial contact with the ground, you must have control of the football before it touched the ground.
"In this situation, yes, his knee goes down. But we know Sunday football, the knee going down, you are still live and can do whatever you want with the football as opposed to college football. So, yes, the knee was down, he does make another move where he’s reaching for pay dirt. Once he reaches for pay dirt, he loses control of the football. Before he regains control of the football, it touches the ground. Therefore, it was an incomplete pass. This is not so much about a football move, it’s about going to the ground. In the process of going to the ground, you must survive the ground via having control of the football upon the initial contact with the ground.”
That should clear things up for everyone, right? Or not.
Whether the league wants to admit it or not, this is a bad rule. And it will come up to haunt another team, probably in this season's playoffs.
THE SETUP
Reminder: We can’t report what we see in NFL practices, per league guidelines. So we’ll always just use this space for any allowable updates, as well as a quick repository for news after the practice and media availability.
It's Friday, so the Steelers have two remaining practices before leaving for Houston. I'll put any immediate news of note here on this live file, then I’ll have full coverage later.