LATROBE, PA – For nearly 20 years, you couldn’t go to a Pittsburgh Steelers training camp practice without the scene buzzing when they fired up one of Mike Tomlin’s favorite drills.
Seven Shots.
It was some serious mano a mano football. Seven plays from the 2-yard line. Offense vs. Defense. Whether it was a gut-check power run or some creative pass, it was hardcore competition with live tackling. The unit that won at least four of those situational conquests won the day. And typically, they’d do it all over the next day.
The sequence undoubtedly set the tone for Tomlin’s physical camps.
And if seven cracks from the 2 weren’t enough, there was the Backs-On-Backers drill that pitted running backs against linebackers in the open field.
My, how times have changed.
Tomlin’s punishing drills – and before him, Bill Cowher had his share of gut-check tone-setters – have gone the way of two-a-days. They are now part of the nostalgic memories at Saint Vincent College, the quaint little school about an hour outside of Pittsburgh where the Steelers have been coming for summer camp (except for two years due to the pandemic) since 1967.
This is what happens when there’s a new sheriff in town as Mike McCarthy replaced Tomlin, on the job for 19 seasons, to become just the franchise’s fourth coach since 1969.
Sure, McCarthy knows all about Steelers tradition. He grew up in Pittsburgh. Yet McCarthy has his own philosophy for running training camp. The most stark difference in a Steelers camp under McCarthy is the minimal contact.
Put another way: No tackling!
"It’s just ‘no tackling’ is the only difference,” star linebacker T.J. Watt told USA TODAY Sports, maybe underselling it a bit. “But other than that, we’re still playing physical, we’re still playing very hard. Just not taking guys down to the ground.”
'An adjustment period'
Still, as the Steelers open the preseason at home on Thursday night against the Green Bay Packers, training camp has in some ways represented a culture shock.
Ask Cam Heyward. The well-respected defensive lineman is preparing for his 16th NFL season as the longest-tenured Steeler.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say there is an adjustment period,” Heyward, 37, told USA TODAY Sports, sitting at a picnic table outside the locker room after a recent practice. “It’s about finding flow in a new system. Listening to Mike McCarthy as our leader now.
“It should be different. If it was the same, I’d be a little confused.”
Heyward knows all about the debate concerning how much contact during training camp practices prepare a team for the real contact of the regular season. While the Steelers never had a losing season in Tomlin’s 19 years, all of those physical camps didn’t stop the Steelers from the disturbing habit in recent years of fading down the stretch.
That bottom line is why some argue that the Steelers needed a big change. If McCarthy’s methods help reverse that season-ending trend, his no-contact practices – heavy on precise details – might be viewed as the perfect foundational blueprint.
“I gotta trust,” said Heyward, working in a new scheme employed by new defensive coordinator Patrick Graham. “You’ve got to really stress technique in these opportunities. You don’t want to go into your first game and, ‘Hey, who can tackle and who can’t?’ But it’s about getting your eyes right, really trusting your technique.”
Aaron Rodgers a fan of both camps
Of course, no Steelers player has a deeper perspective on a McCarthy camp than Aaron Rodgers, who worked under the coach in 13 Green Bay Packers camps after McCarthy replaced Mike Sherman following the quarterback’s rookie year.
Rodgers enjoyed his lone Tomlin camp last year (when no, he wasn’t hit as a protected quarterback) but is not complaining that McCarthy holds practices around 11 a.m., whereas his predecessor started sessions around 2 p.m., which typically turned up the temperature. The Steelers will break camp on Aug. 18.
“I loved last year’s camp,” Rodgers told USA TODAY Sports. “With Mike T., we’d tackle. I can’t tell you exactly how this camp is going to end. But you know, Mike McCarthy’s all about the schedule.”
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Then again, Rodgers has been around long enough to remember the grind in camps before the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) negotiated for less-taxing camp routines as a health and safety measure with the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that ended the lockout in 2011. With that, full-speed two-a-day contact practices and some of the most barbaric drills were outlawed. There’s also a cap on the length of practices (2 ½ hours) and at the start of camp, a 5-day acclimation period without pads and a mandatory day off before they participate in padded practices with full contact.
“Training camp, it’s not like it used to be,” Rodgers said. “So, to me, it’s all mental. Practice is all CBA-length.
“The rookies are like, ‘That’s it?’
“Yeah, that’s it.”
Mike McCarthy prefers to minimize risk in training camp
Still, there’s a distinctive spectrum that NFL coaches fall under when managing the contact in their camps. And McCarthy is undoubtedly at the end of the spectrum looking to minimize risk.
“I think it’s having the long game in mind, just trying to be smart with how we approach each and every day,” said Watt, entering his 10th NFL season. “A lot of teaching moments. We’re all learning a new scheme, offensively and defensively. He’s done a great job turning up the dial when it’s appropriate and pulling it back when it’s appropriate.”
Will it work? The Steelers haven’t advanced past the first round of the playoffs since reaching the 2016 AFC title game. Maybe McCarthy’s approach will keep the team fresher.
We’ll see. It’s also worth noting that despite their different styles, McCarthy and Tomlin have something in common. Both won a Super Bowl but over many years experienced one frustration after another in trying to get back to the NFL mountaintop.
“You know, everybody has a different approach and that’s the way it should be,” Steelers owner Art Rooney II told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s going to be fun to see how this unfolds, but I certainly like what I’ve seen.”
Rooney has noticed the tweaks, mentioning the timing of the schedule, responsibilities of assistant coaches and the pace of practices – on top of the big change of minimizing contact in the practices.
Even Rooney, though, has had a bit surreal feeling going through training camp that became clockwork under Tomlin, who surprisingly stepped down in January after a lopsided defeat to the Houston Texans in the first round of the AFC playoffs.
“On a personal level, I miss Mike,” Rooney said. “I enjoyed working with him, just appreciated the way he did things. You can argue all you want about the results – and they weren’t always what we wanted – but we were always in contention. By and large, Mike got the best out of the players he had to work with, and you can’t ask for much more from a coach.”
Unless, of course, new tricks for the Steelers result in a new path to championship glory – and the start of a whole new training camp tradition.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No tackling! Steelers hope gentler camp helps end playoff flameouts | Opinion