Young wide receiver Eli Rogers just recently returned to the Pittsburgh Steelers on a free agent contract earlier this summer. It now looks like Rogers’ stay in Pittsburgh could be short-lived.
The team announced on Tuesday that the pass catcher has been suspended by the NFL for the first game of the season after violating the league’s substance abuse policy.
“We are disappointed that Eli Rogers has been suspended for Week 1 of the regular season as part of the NFL Policy and Program for Substances of Abuse,” Steelers GM Kevin Colbert said in a statement, via the team’s official website.
Rogers, 25, jumped on to the scene for Pittsburgh as a rookie back in 2016, recording 48 receptions for 594 yards in 13 games (eight starts). His 2017 campaign was cut short after the former undrafted free agent from Louisville suffered a torn ACL.
It’s not yet known whether Rogers would have been ready for Pittsburgh’s Week 1 outing against the Cleveland Browns. But this settles that question.
With the likes of Antonio Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster and James Washington leading the charge at wide receiver, Rogers was only going to be a depth option in the first place. This suspension could very well lead to his release from the Steelers less than a month after re-signing with the squad.