PITTSBURGH — Cory Trice is starting to get back to where he was pre-injury. The Pittsburgh Steelers second-year cornerback suffered a torn ACL in training camp, and while he participated from the outset of OTAs, it took Trice a bit to get entirely going. However, defensive coordinator Teryl Austin and secondary coach Grady Brown are starting to see the signs that Trice is getting back up to speed.
Around this time last year, Trice could be labeled the star of most practices. And as of late, the splash plays have come back as Trice has shed the bulky brace around his knee, and some of the fluidity that he lost with that brace is coming back to cover the speedier, smaller wide receivers.
“Yeah, I think right now, Cory is just working his way back into getting somewhere close to full strength,” Austin said. “He had a promising start last year until the injury. I think he’s kind of starting to pick it back up in terms of getting closer to where he was and really like how he’s doing. We’ve been reallycareful with him because we want to make sure that we get him to camp and give him the best opportunity to succeed because we did think that last year he was trending in the right direction.”
Cory Trice is a talented player with length and fluidity most lack at cornerback. So, seeing the coaches high on the Purdue product is not surprising. To this point, Brown has limited Trice’s snaps to ease him back into the full-time workload, but that has changed over the last few days, and it seems that Trice is responding to that well.
“You know what, he probably could do more,” Brown said. “But I’m cautiously optimistic and cautious in my approach with his reps. I think he could do more, but he’s in a good place. He’s had a knee injury before and if you ask him, I would imagine he would say he is in a good place right now. So, we just need to get him to Latrobe and get from there.”
So, Trice is working his way back to being in the lineup full-time, and that will come with all sets of positives that the team can end up evaluating. It seems most of that will have to wait longer for training camp in Latrobe rather than taking place at a mandatory minicamp.