greetings from Latrobe
here are a few things from watching the action at camp today:
Probably one of the most action packed days I have seen in years.
several 11 on 11 drills and some live hitting indeed.
Only guys that came away from the day hobbling a bit were
#85 Haywood Bay -- couldn't quite tell what it was that he tweaked. Seemed to be either a ankle or a knee
he dove for a sideline pass and the defender kindof rolled on top of him. It didn't seem all that awful but he didn't get
up too quickly and that was in about 1st 45 min of practice (which lasted 2.5 hrs) He limped off and I didn't see him in drills the rest of the day.
Archer was running with the 1st team a lot and then he seemed to somewhat injure his knee as he had a big ice pack on it. I don't remember at what point. It didn't seem too serious as he was walking around on it for the rest of practice. One lower rung WR also had some ice on his sholder.
Honorable mention goes to one of the staff (quite a young guy) who was emulating the QB in a OL vs LB/DL drill
and this guy moved to the side of the rush as a mobile QB wud (keep in mind no pads on this youngster) and some Defender pushed him down from behind. Quite a reaction and a few laughs luckily and the youngster was smiling luckily afterwards as he related to story to his buddies.
Some ofther observations.
Twice during breaks when the offense was not drilling (1st during a special teams drill) and then during some FG drills. Big ben who looks in great shape. Was running sprints all the way back and forth across the field on the middle field. I dont' think I had ever seen him do that before. Pretty cool. He must have run about 10 of them sideline to sideline at least on 2 different occasions with only about a 10-15 sec rest in between. HE seems to have gotten the message about keeping those legs in shape. Keep up the good work Ben.
Landry Jones got a lot of reps in the 2nd team offense. Seemed like more than Bruce G.
Wheaton looked good catching the ball on offensive plays.
Before the team did their normal stretching drills they had 2 jugs machines launching balls to 2 different groups
of catchers. One line with end over end KO's type of balls and another line of the WR's with pure spirals of like 50 plus yards. After about 5 rotations for everyone. AB started catching successive balls and holding onto the football that he had already caught. The crowd got into it and he got up to about 5 other footballls stacked in his hands before he dropped one. IT was quite entertaining.
Martavious Bryant #80 also tried it as well and I think he got about 3 or 4 not as good as A Brown!
BTW ABrown looked his usual sharp self and he stayed the longest of anyone after practice working on catches from the jugs machine ( caught 7 in a row from about 10 yards away with 1 hand before dropping one) and running width of field sprints with Lance Moore and I think #31 a vet DB. Followed by a long auto graph signing time!
Ben stayed after practice too and worked on timing to AB and Wheaton corner end zone passes. Again neat to see the extra leadership. At one point Ben was chastizing one of the Zebras who was watching for pentalties during the 11 on 11 drills and asking him why the Defensive holding calls were not being made.
more in next post
In 1 of the 11 on 11 drills Landry jones made a good sweep fake and bootlegged out to his left and whirled and threw a good 20 yards or so downfield to a WR -- totally faked out the Defense on that one.
The WRs did a drill somewhat like at the combine where they are fired passes back and forth from opposite directions and they have to catch the ball and pass it off to the side and then turn around and catch another ball from the opposite direction.
The TE's did a blocking sled drill that was fun to watch as well.
Before the team stretched everyone ran this little agility drilll which focused on quick ankle flexion and tight turns. Tomlin was funny during that one yelling at every other player calling some by number and some by name and at the end smack talking with AB calling him 84.
The FG team did a quick 10 sec run onto the field drill and get in formation and kick the ball in probably under 10 sec as one of the coaches yelled out the countdown timer. Not a drill I'd ever seen before in my manyi previous trips to Latrobe over the years.
Ben and AB stayed after practice and signed autographs for a while before carts wisked them away. Sorry no AB signed official ball thrown into the stands like what happened 2 years ago -).
I think they were testing also some kind of technical thing on the PC that (I'm guessing here) maybe relaying signals to a PC via a helmet cam type of thing.
In any case one assistant coach kept monitoring the PC during the drills and there seemed to be the rep from the company that produced the "device/system" standing by the steeler asst coach all the time during the practice.
Lance moore seems to be the slot guy. He I think will be much like Ward and good at getting open. The offense also ran no huddle drills 11-11 against the 1st team defense but I don't think that one was quite live hitting.
Side note: At least one time a Defensive player grabbed the offensive RB's jersey and basically stretched it out even tearing it. Kindof comical.
Oh yea at the beginning of practice. Ben and Pouncey got into a contest to see who could hit the cross bar of the FG post from 20 yards away by passing the ball. Each time they hit the cross bar with the pass they moved 5 yards further back. Pouncey was beating Ben when horn to start practice sounded.
In general there seemed to be a lot of energy from everyone during the entire practice. If there is a general theme this year its definitley quickness all around. Lets hope we can all say that after 8 games into the season too.
AB looks in top form consistently beating Ike down the field on routes.
On one 11-11 drill not full contact. Starting LCB Cortez Allen came on a bltz and would have leveled the opposing QB if allowed.
Legarrette Blount did not practice and the drafted TE BranchFlower (sp??) was in a walking boot.
Seemed like Bell did not run the ball too much but they were giving archer and #30 a backup RB a lot of runs into the line during the full tackling drills.
Good to see Joey P back at Latrobe. I didn't hear him too much but some times the defense was on the middle field doing drills so his voice was far away.
Great weather indeed not too hot.
Those are my observations hope you all enjoyed them. Disclaimer: everything from memory.
I very much a enjoyed. Grazzi.
