Can Pouncey Do Enough to Play Sunday vs Packers?

All the sudden, it looks like Maurkice Pouncey isn’t so “out” for Sunday after all. At media day Tuesday in Dallas, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin would not rule out his Pro Bowl rookie center, and Pouncey himself told Deon Sanders of NFL Network that he plans on playing.

“In my mind right now it’s stuck on playing, I am preparing the right way to play the Green Bay Packers,” Pouncey told Sanders. “We’ll see how it goes.”

Pouncey has a high left ankle sprain, and needed crutches to walk down the steps from the team’s charter flight in Dallas Monday wearing a bulky walking boot on his left foot.

“I’ve been doing a lot of ice and stuff,” the center said. “I took the cast off yesterday and hopefully I will be on the bike today moving around a lot better.”

“Most likely about 75 (percent chance of playing) to 25 (not playing) percent,” Pouncey said. “You all stay tuned Sunday night, hopefully Pouncey will be out there.”

“We’ve been very aggressive in terms of treating it,” Tomlin said. “We’ve even been putting it in hard casts and so forth. Just trying to do everything in our power to give him the best opportunity to participate. I don’t know what his chances are at this point.”

According to media reports, Pouncey also has a broken bone in the ankle—a report Tomlin would neither confirm nor deny.

“I’m sure it could be characterized as that,” Tomlin said vaguely. “I’m sure I’ve got something floating around in my ankle. The issue that’s keeping him from participating is the high ankle sprain.”

Backup Doug Legursky(notes), who lost out to Pouncey for the job in training camp, would fill in if necessary. Legursky is a former undrafted free agent from Marshall who was on the Steelers’ practice squad during their last Super Bowl win two years ago.

“I don’t think it’s going to affect us at all personally because we have a lot of guys on this team, let alone the offensive line, that can come up and step up if one of the starters come down,” offensive tackle Flozell Adams(notes) said. “So I have no shadow of a doubt that Doug will do just as good a job—if not better than Pouncey—being in there for this Super Bowl. And I mean that.”

Legursky came in for Pouncey after the first-round pick out of Florida went down early in the game against the Jets, and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger(notes) fumbled an exchange that resulted in a safety. Still, Tomlin echoed Adams’ confidence in Legursky, who started four games at right guard earlier this season when starter Trai Essex(notes) went down with an injury.

“We’re comfortable if we have to go in that direction,” Tomlin said.