Steelers Preparing As Though Landry Jones Will Start Week 7’s Game

Steelers HC Mike Tomlin told reporters on Tuesday that they’re preparing as though Landry Jones will be their starting quarterback in Week 7.

“It’s safe to prepare as if Landry Jones is our quarterback this week,” Tomlin said. “He’s healthy.”

Earlier in the day, Ben Roethlisberger explained that while he expects to receive some practice reps this week, he doesn’t want to take away valuable practice time for Jones if he isn’t 100 percent healthy.

“That’s kind of the coaches job,” Roethlisberger said during a radio interview with with 93.7 The Fan, via CBS Pittsburgh. “A lot of it determines too how I feel early in practice. I would assume that Landry and I will kind of split the first reps with the first period and if it feels good in the first period, we’ll probably continue that way.

“If for some reason it doesn’t feel quite right or if I don’t feel 100 percent about it,then I don’t want to just be out there taking reps away from Landry just because. He’s going to need to get all the reps he can. So it’s going to be a feeling out process but I’ll leave that up to the coaches to decide kind of how they’re going to split reps up.”

Jones, 26, actually stepped in for Michael Vick and performed better than many anticipated, completing eight of 12 passes for 168 yards and two touchdowns in the Steelers’ Week 6 win over the Cardinals.

Roethlisberger is working his way back from a knee injury, so we’ll have more updates during the week regarding his status and the Steelers’ starting quarterback.