Steelers Now
PITTSBURGH — They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. For the Pittsburgh Steelers strength and conditioning staff, that doesn’t seem to be true.
This afternoon, the Steelers will take their annual conditioning test at St. Vincent College near Latrobe, Pa. — the very first thing on the training camp schedule after moving into their dorm rooms.
Last season, it was an unmitigated disaster.
In 2024, the Steelers were debuting a new strength and conditioning staff, with Western Pennsylvania native Phil Matusz returning to Pittsburgh after a few seasons at Boston College. Matusz’ hiring came after the Steelers let go Marcel Pastoor, who had spent 23 years with the team before his departure.
While the new strength and conditioning staff was in place for OTAs and minicamp last year, the first impression they made on most surrounding the Steelers came on the first day of training camp last July, when starting quarterback Russell Wilson was injured while pushing a weighted sled as part of the team’s camp-opening conditioning test.
Things did not progress well from there. The challenging fitness test that injured the team’s starting quarterback, combined with the collegiate-level bonafides of the staff and some early personalty conflicts led to a feeling from some on the team to think that the new staff might be in over its collective head.
“You’re not far off,” one veteran player said in 2024 when asked if that was the case.
When the NFLPA released its annual report cards of NFL teams and the working environments therein, the Steelers’ worst score was for their strength staff, finishing dead last among the 32 teams. The results of the 2024 season didn’t skew kindly to the team’s strength staff, either, as the Steelers finished the year as one of the most-injured teams in the NFL.
According to a study by Rotowire.com, the Steelers had 37 injuries with a total of 223 man-games lost to injury, the fifth-most in the league. A separate study by sportscasting.com pegged the financial impact of the Steelers’ injury proclivity. Pittsburgh had $23 million worth of salary left on the sidelines in 2024 due to injury. That figure was the seventh-most in the NFL.
Of course, not all injuries are made equal. When Steelers’ first-round pick Troy Fautanu was lost for the season to a September knee injury, no one in the organization placed any blame on the training staff.
“Foot just got caught in the ground real weird,” Fautanu said, calling it a freak accident.
But soft-tissue injuries are generally seen as more preventable. Conditioning is one of the key aspects of preventing such injuries, and as such, keeping their number down is a key metric for the strength and conditioning staff.
“The biggest issue with what happened with the Steelers was a flaw in training methodologies and training philosophies with the newer generation of strength coaches,” CBS sports injury analyst and strength and conditioning specialist Marty Jaramillo told Steelers Now. “They focus too much...
