There is nothing ambiguous about the notice Pittsburgh Steelers officials are sending wide receiver Troy Edwards, the team's first-round choice in the 1999 draft. Edwards is clearly a player who has fallen into disfavor and probably needs a change of scenery.

	Edwards

Edwards survived the expansion draft four months ago, ignored by the Houston Texans despite the fact he was the best young wide receiver exposed to them. And he dodged another bullet last week, when the Steelers failed to dispatch him in the first round of the league-wide post-June 1 purge. But with team officials scheduled to visit this week with free agent wide receivers Herman Moore and Terance Mathis, and obviously intent on adding another veteran, Edwards' days seem numbered.

Forget the handwriting on the wall, since Pittsburgh management could have erected a neon sign atop the city's famed Mount Washington to announce its disdain for Edwards. The message for Edwards is about as subtle as a Lennox Lewis uppercut to the chops, or a sledgehammer upside the head.

The three-year veteran, reduced to the No. 4 wide receiver spot in 2001, has fallen all the way off the depth chart and won't survive the next round of post-June 1 roster moves.

	“	The hemorrhaging hasn't quite stopped yet. There still could be a little more blood before camp. ”
		— Jack Wirth, NFL player agent

Of course, Edwards is not alone in that regard, and those veterans anxious about staying on the payroll last week shouldn't cancel the anti-stress prescription just yet. There were 14 post-June 1 salary cap casualties around the NFL last Monday and Tuesday. And there figure to be 10-12 more in coming weeks.

"The hemorrhaging hasn't quite stopped yet," said agent Jack Wirth, who represents Jay Riemersma, the Buffalo tight end whose continued tenure with the franchise remains an iffy proposition. "There still could be a little more blood before camp."

Indeed, some teams that needed to create salary cap room by cutting underachievers with overinflated salaries didn't finish all the pruning last week and won't make moves until they begin signing draft choices. But make no mistake, the post-June 1 beheadings aren't over yet, and Edwards apparently is on the chopping block.

The former Louisiana Tech standout posted a team-high 61 receptions in his rookie season but has only 37 catches since then and was relegated mostly to special teams duty last season. There are teams who feel the 25-year-old Edwards still can be a playmaker in the league -- Bills general manager Tom Donahoe, who drafted him while in Pittsburgh, would take him in a heartbeat if he could squeeze him under the cap -- but the Steelers are not one of those clubs.

And so they will audition older and creakier players this week, likely sign one of them, and jettison Edwards into the unemployment line.

If it is any solace for Edwards, who was scheduled to earn a base salary of $525,000 and carried a $1.325 million salary-cap value, he won't be alone. Here is a thumbnail look at a half-dozen other veterans who dodged last week's casualties list but who remain squarely in the crosshairs even as training camp nears:

	Scott