Steelers Now
Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated has one big question regarding Mike McCarthy‘s first training camp as the Pittsburgh Steelers head coach — how will McCarthy establish his program and handle an older roster at the same time?
“There’s a real balance that homecoming Steelers coach Mike McCarthy will have to strike between managing an older roster and establishing his program,” Breer wrote. “Generally, Year 1 isn’t when you take the foot off the gas. The good news is McCarthy has always been willing to change and adapt to the conditions around him, and he’s had veteran teams in the past, which tells me he’ll have a good game plan for having Aaron Rodgers, T.J. Watt, Jalen Ramsey, Cam Heyward, and the rest of the franchise’s elder statesmen both rested and ready for Week 1. Making sure that doesn’t affect the rest of the team will be the tricky part.”
The tempo at spring practices were intense under McCarthy, according to former Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
“Well, I think from what I heard also is that this new coaching regime has these guys moving, grooving and running,” Roethlisberger said last month on his Footbahlin podcast. “There is no slowing down, there’s no sitting down. From what I have heard, it’s eye-opening and a big change. Change isn’t always bad by any means.”
Roethlisberger is also concerned with the new practice method, however. He doesn’t want to see the Steelers get burned out late in the season. That famously happened with the Steelers in Tomlin‘s first year as the team’s head coach in 2007.
“I know Tomlin, one of his big things was he didn’t have any issues with guys being in pads. We would be in pads, guys would be hitting, it’s like we are in Week 12 and we are hitting still, like our bodies were beaten up… He gave guys breaks early so Tomlin felt like he could get away with that,” Roethlisberger said. “From what I hear with this staff is it’s go go go, and OK, so what’s going to happen on the backend of this, because guys are going so much in camp. It’ll be interesting to see. Obviously McCarthy is not a newbie … He knows what he’s doing.”
Seven Shots and Backs on Backers were two training camp staples under Mike Tomlin. Both drills are not expected to continue with Mike McCarthy, however, according to Christopher Carter of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Locked On Steelers.
“OTAs and minicamp, I didn’t see Seven Shots once, so that’s a sign that that’s pretty much gone,” Carter said on 93.7 The Fan.
Carter added: “If we don’t get Backs on Backers, it will be missed, and a lot of people are going to be looking for something.”
Tomlin was known for having arguably the most physical and grueling training camps in the league. McCarthy’s training camps are high-intensity and detailed, but there’s not much live-contact.
McCarthy has brought several new methods and philosophies to the organization. It...
