There can be no worse feeling for a rookie without pedigree attached to his name than to get the feeling of the team forgetting about him after he can no longer play because of an injury. Every year, on every team, we see young players getting that injury waiver designation.
Those roster spots are too valuable to allow every young player with ‘potential’ to occupy a spot that he won’t be able to use. So that’s why it meant something when the Pittsburgh Steelers chose to keep then-rookie seventh-round outside linebacker Keion Adams around on the offseason roster before they placed him on the season-ending injured-reserve list.