It has got to be mentally tough to be a player like Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ross Ventrone—or more specifically, to be a player in his position, chronically on the bubble, never knowing if he is going to be the 53rd man or the 54th man, the last man on the roster or the first man off it.
The 29-year-old Ventrone knows what both sides are like, having spent a total of 23 games on the 53-man roster since 2011, including 15 games with the Steelers over the course of the past two years, during which he has been frequently on and off the team as much as anybody in recent memory.