Steelers DeAngelo Williams will be inactive against Broncos

The Pittsburgh Steelers are pretty banged up heading into their AFC playoff game with the Denver Broncos.

The Pittsburgh Steelers came away from their clash with the Cincinnati Bengals with the victory and advanced to face the Denver Broncos on Sunday in the second round of the NFL playoffs. Unfortunately, the Steelers are being dealt a fairly tough hand against the top seed in the AFC.

Already without starting wide receiver Antonio Brown, who is in the NFL concussion protocol after last week’s vicious hit, and having Ben Roethlisberger hobbled in practice, the Steelers received more difficult news on Friday.  They will once again be without running back DeAngelo Williams, per Adam Schefter of ESPN.

Williams sat out the wild card match-up with the Bengals last week after suffering an ankle injury in a Week 17 match-up with the Cleveland Browns. That left the Steelers with the pair of Jordan Todman and Fitzgerald Touissant in the backfield for Pittsburgh last week. Overall, the pair combined for 28 carries and 123 yards on the ground, with Touissant also catching four passes for another 60 yards. All and all, they filled in quite nicely for the injured Williams.

That all said, the Broncos come into the game having finished third in the NFL by allowing just 1,337 yards on the ground in 2015 and opposing backs averaged just 3.3 yards per carry against the Denver defense, best in the league. The Steelers would much rather have their best available backs handling the load, especially with Pittsburgh missing their big play weapon in Brown.