Heath Miller was prepared to enter the Pittsburgh Steelers' Monday night game against the Kansas City Chiefs at quarterback if the team needed someone to replace Byron Leftwich after he entered the game replacing Ben Roethlisberger.
The Steelers have three quarterbacks on their roster: Roethlisberger, Leftwich, and veteran Charlie Batch. However, with a variety of other injuries keeping starters such as Rashard Mendenhall, Troy Polamalu, Antonio Brown, and Marcus Gilbert out of the game, the team needed every one of its 45 spots on its active roster for players who would likely see the field, as opposed to Batch, who would only need to play should the team's top two QB's get hurt. So he wasn't suited up Monday night.
Miller was next in line: the tight end played quarterback in high school, winning all-state honors and committing to Virginia to play the position before being switched to tight end. He's been at that position ever since. Alan Robinson of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that although he was technically ready to play, he hadn't had much preparation for the extreme circumstance:
Teams usually draw up a sequence of plays for such conditions but, Miller said, "It would have been a very small package."
And how many snaps has he taken in practice? "Maybe two," he said.
There used to be an obscure rule allowing teams to keep third quarterbacks inactive, but play anyway under the condition that neither of the team's top two quarterbacks would be allowed to re-enter, but that was abolished after the 2011 season.
Miller had four receptions in the game for 47 yards. He leads the team in receptions with 43 and is third in yards with 431.