Tuesday with Tomlin

It was a short Mike Tomlin press conference today. And since more than half of that was eaten up by Tomlin heaping praises on the Raiders, there wasn't a lot of information passed.

But we did learn that Rashard Mendenhall will get some contact this week, a big step forward for the running back as he comes back from a torn ACL.

With the Pittsburgh running game struggling, the Steelers might be tempted to bring Mendenhall back sooner than they originally planned.

The plan when he was activated off the PUP was to wait until after the bye, but that could change to at least get Mendenhall a handful of carries this week and see how he responds.

The results couldn't be much worse than what we've seen.

@ Tomlin said the Steelers will take a similar approach with Troy Polamalu and James Harrison as the one they took last week when neither wound up playing against the Jets.

But what Tomlin meant is that the Steelers will take things day to day.

Like Mendenhall, the plan with Harrison was to bring him back after the bye.

The Steelers have been playing along with Harrison telling him he had a chance to play because that's how Tomlin feels you handle great players. You never tell them never.

But when it comes down to it, Tomlin is going to protect the player from himself. He's not going to allow him to come back too early just because his competitive fire is pushing him to do so.

As for Polamalu, I'm not going to be so quick to write him off.

If he practices by Friday, he'll play. If he doesn't he won't. It will be that simple.

@ Stevenson Sylvester will return to practice at some point this week and could possibly play Sunday.

Heath Miller has torn cartilage between his ribs. The Steelers will rest him in practice this week, but he'll play through the pain.