Maurkice Pouncey showed up on the Steelers' injury report late in the season with a hip injury and skipped the team's regular season finale against Cleveland because of that.
But one national web site listed Pouncey as "questionable" to play in Sunday's AFC Divisional playoff game against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Heinz Field because of a hernia. Pouncey told DKPittsburghSports.com Monday that is certainly not the case.
"I feel good. I played all 42 plays," Pouncey told me of practice Monday. "Tell them not to put that on me."
That, along with the return of All-Pro receiver Antonio Brown, was good news for the Steelers Monday as they returned to practice from their bye week.
The Steelers are going to need all of their offensive weapons against Jacksonville, which finished second in the NFL in total defense and led the league in pass defense. The Jaguars also had 55 sacks this season. Only the Steelers, with 56, had more.
It was a reason why they also sat Ben Roethlisberger, Le'Veon Bell and David DeCastro in the regular season finale. But Brown and Pouncey were the two players among that group who were dealing with injuries.
"We've got to get ready to play. They're a good team," Pouncey told me. "And they rotate a lot of guys in their front four. It's not like they're just playing the same four guys. Their backups come in and they do a good job, as well."
But defensive linemen Calais Campbell, Yannick Ngakoue, Malik Jackson and Dante Fowler combined for 42.5 of Jacksonville's 55 sacks. A lot of what happens on Sunday will depend on the Steelers' offensive line protecting Roethlisberger.
Jacksonville recorded just two sacks of Roethlisberger in a 30-9 win at Heinz Field Oct. 8, but also hit him five times, forcing five interceptions, two of which were returned for touchdowns. Roethlisberger was sacked just 21 times this season and was hit less than any quarterback in the NFL. But the offense isn't looking at what happened in that game -- which the Steelers led 9-7 midway through the third quarter -- for anything but motivation to be better in this game.
"We can't even use that game plan because we had five interceptions," Pouncey said. "We threw the ball like 55 times. It was us trying to play catch-up the entire game. We can't really judge it off that game."