August 3, 2025 • 45 mins
Labs and Tom break down yesterdays practice, hear from Coach Tomlin, and QB Mason Rudolph
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Iheartradios Live coverage Job Not twenty twenty five Steelers Training
Camp is presented by FedEx where Now meets Next and
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(00:30):
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US steel.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Labs.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Today is the culmination of what is the longest stretch
of Steelers training Camp. This will be the sixth straight
practice for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Half of those have been
in pads, as Tom and put it when he was
coming off the field yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
This truly is the dog days of summer.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Yeah, but what a beautiful picture post card day it
is here in the lovely Laurel Highlands. Really, it is
a pretty day, very nice climate, nice breeze. If Father Paul,
the president of the unit of Saint Vincent College, wanted
(01:18):
a you know, to take a picture, a picture of
the campus to kind of put on a postcard, this
would be the day to shoot it. So let's hope
that what happens on the fields is as pretty for
Mike Tomlin as the scene is for Father Paul. Well.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Even though it will be the sixth straight day for
Steelers practicing, some veterans got the day off yesterday. That
was kind of the theme of yesterday's practice. And I
don't think it is really a head scratcher as to
why Tomlin did that. You had the late Friday night
lights practice in pads, you weren't going in pads yesterday
for Saturday's practice. We have a pretty elder team, to
(02:00):
put it lightly, especially at some very key positions. Want
to keep those guys as fresh as possible. And I'm
assuming labs. I mean, I don't want to speak out
of turn here. You'll correct me if I do. Pads
are going back on today. I'd much rather have the
Rogerses and the Watts and the Haywards of the world
fresh and ready to practice with pads on.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So missing yesterday not that big of a.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Deal, right, And you know, usually one of the kind
of I won't say a rule of thumb, but things
you can kind of count on is since Monday's a
day off, you practice them in pads the day before
because then they have that next day, you know, to
kind of rest and recoup, right, heal a little bit,
(02:39):
if any whoever needs to heal a little bit. So, yeah,
this makes sense. And then the other thing is today
is Family Day up here at Saint Vincent College for
the Steelers, which means, you know, players families, well, players'
families are always welcome here, but this is kind of
a I don't know, a focused family day.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know, it's a Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
It's like a perfect and they're off tomorrow, you know,
so there's there's a lot of things like that.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You can stuff afterwards with your family.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Yes, and Mike Tomlin often will give them the night
off meetings because of its Family Day. A lot of
guys will be going home after practice with their families,
so you know, there's a lot of that kind of stuff.
And the other thing about Family Day is, you know,
(03:34):
while Mike Tomlin often gives them the evening off in
terms of meetings, he also will schedule a couple of
special competitive drills competitive periods, let me say, during Family
Day practice because his belief is that nobody wants to
get their butt kicked in front of their families. So
(04:00):
I don't I haven't seen that schedule yet, so I'm
not sure that this is going to happen. But on
family Day you often see the only repetition of goal line,
so you know it's.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
In the entire camp period.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Again, I mean no promises. He can sneak another one
in there if he has to.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
But we're down to like five five more practices, I
think because now the preseason games are you know, getting close,
and so yeah, I think so I would say that
at Saint Vincent College, this is the only opportunity, clear
cut opportunity for there to be a goal line drill.
(04:45):
So that's you know, it's kind of like seven shots,
only maybe it's a little closer and you know, get
seven opportunities to you know, get the ball into the
end zone if you're the offense.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Something to look forward to today, maybe a little extra
intensity practice if you're there with the families in attendance.
Some of the veterans that were off yesterday we mentioned Rogers,
Hayward and Watt, Darius Slay and DK Metcalf also took
the day off of practice. Jalen Ramsey was dressed and
took part in some drills, but he was kind of optional, right,
It wasn't a full practice for him.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Yeah, I mean he did some things and didn't do
some other things. But in typical Jalen rams Jalen Ramsey style,
he was very involved. That's one of the things I
noticed about Jalen Ramsey. He is not a shrinking violet
by any means. With his teammates, with the coaches, rooting
(05:41):
on the defense, trash talking the offense, you know, whatever
is necessary at that particular moment. So yeah, sometimes it's
hard to tell if Jalen Ramsey is practicing or not
if you just watch him on the sideline because a
lot of for example, Cam Hayward had like a defensive
(06:04):
call sheet. It looked like he had an ear piece
in so he could hear, you know, the communication from
Tara Austin onto the field. Being involved that way, you know,
Jalen Ramsey is pouncing around and as I said, interacting
with teammates, congratulating them for good plays, maybe you know,
(06:27):
mentioning a thing or two to some offensive players after
the defense made a good play. He is he is
involved in It looks like he is certainly into it
and having a lot of.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Fun, you know what.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I think a lot of that can be applied to
the new acquisitions by the Steelers, because, hey, sometimes you
get traded in this league, Labs, and you don't don't
go to a place that necessarily will rejuvenate you in
your latter half of your career, you know what I mean.
But going from Miami, which was a good team the
past couple of years, but coming to a team like
the Steelers, a marquee franchise, like Rogers put it when
he was introduced way back in April or May whenever,
(07:01):
that was a mini camp, and he said, you know,
this is one of the marquee franchises of the NFL.
I played for another one for fourteen years of my career.
It's awesome to be here in Pittsburgh. Like, I just
totally get the sense that Ramsey, you know, just gets
that extra shot of energy, that rejuvenation by coming to
a place like this for a coach like Tomlin and
a team that you know, it's kind of like I
said it yesterday on the Night Show, it's kind of
like the Avengers Labs. I don't know if you've seen
(07:22):
those movies, if you'll get that. But it's like you
just get all these great players together on one team
and there's just an excitement in the building and on
the on the roster.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Yeah, I mean, I don't you know, I don't know
how much time Jalen Ramsey spent at the South Side
practice facility, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
But right that trade came a little later.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Yeah. A lot of the a lot of the newcomers
will remark about six Lombardi trophies lined up in a row, right,
I mean, that's an impressive when you come off the
second floor, law the second floor, I don't know, whatever
it is, the outer area through those double glass doors,
and then on the right the trophies are lined up there,
(08:04):
each one as its individual case. There's a photo spread
from each of those games behind it. You know, they're
all polished up. You know, they look impressive lined up
in a row like that. I'll tell you. You know,
it takes you a little bit of time to just
walk the gauntlet of the trophies. So, yeah, Jalen Ramsey
(08:28):
hasn't He has a Super Bowl ring, so it's not
like he's totally that's totally foreign to him. The concept
of winning a championship at the NFL level. But to see,
you know, a franchise that has six of those, I
would imagine if you're in this in that business and
that is your goal every year as a player, to
(08:51):
see a franchise that has done it six times is
and you're part of that franchise, maybe it is a
little bit of a energy.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Jolt and has that similar goal every year too, you
know what I mean. Like a player might individually be like,
I'm out to win a championship every single time. A
team might say that to the press, but really they're,
you know, rebuilding, They're thinking of some other thing, maybe
years down the road in mind. Not with the Steelers.
Every year, the goal is to get to the playoffs
and make a run in the playoffs.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Yes, yes, now.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
The defense had their way again in seven shots without
Aaron Rodgers. It was Mason Rudolph who was taking the
first team snaps with the offense. Our final score labs
and you can walk us through how we got there.
It ended in five to two. So maybe one of
the more dominant displays from the defense yesterday.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Yeah, there were you know what it seems to me
is there's a lot of traffic in seven shots in
the end zone in terms of trying to find open
receivers when that is the play call, if it's a pass.
For example, yesterday, I you know, besides the one pass
(09:58):
to Darnel Washing and kind of went diagonally into the
back corner, and you know, he caught it with his
hands away from his body, got his toes in feet
in right before he went out of bounds back towards
the corner. It's heavy traffic. There's you know, you're trying
to all the quarterbacks yesterday, for the most part, we're
(10:18):
trying to fit the ball in very tight windows. And
so you know, kudos to the defense for that. I mean, again,
we've gone over this many times. In these kinds of situations.
Some people look at that and say, boy, the offense
isn't really in rhythm yet. Well, or you know, the
defense is playing pretty sticky coverage and making it difficult.
(10:42):
It's not. There have been sometimes where I've noticed, you know,
with Aaron Rodgers, especially at quarterback, some of his quick throws,
his quick reads, those kinds of things makes it look
like stealing. But that's not very That's not the majority
of the time. That's those are I won't say outliers,
(11:03):
but you know they're not as they're not as prevalent
as Wow, that's a tight window he had to throw
that into. Wow, there were a couple of guys right
there in coverage. Wow a guy got his hand on
the ball or at the line of scrimmage or you
know something. So yeah, they call it competition, period, and
it really is being competitive in a lot of that respect.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Well, one person that really shined to yesterday is in
practice and he's kind of really made a name for
himself in this training camp. He already had a name
for himself, but you know what I mean, he's had
an impressive camp.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Titan Darnell Washington.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
We've noted throughout our training camp reports how impressive he
is in backs on backers labs. But we saw his
toe tap ability in seven shots yesterday.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Yeah, it was a it was a really nice catch.
Regardless of the player's position, when it comes from a
tight end, it's a little bit more impressive when it
comes from a tight end. Not named Pat Fryarmouth on
this particular roster. You know, it is not something that
you see all the time, but I think Darnold Washington
(12:10):
is becoming more well rounded, I guess is more versatile
as a tight end. You know, because tight end is
a position where you know the you really kind of
have to be able to do two things, you know,
block and then be a weapon in the passing attack.
And I would say for the most part throughout the NFL,
(12:34):
tight ends are better at one or the other. You
certainly have the receiving tight ends and then you have
the blocking tight ends. But you know, since Heath Miller,
certainly since Heath Miller on the Steelers, the Steelers have
not had a guy who was such a talented I'll
call it two way tight end as Heath Miller was
(12:56):
in terms of being able to hold his own at
the end of hold his own on the line of
scrimmage against oftentimes defensive linemen for the opposing defense, and
then go out into the pass pattern and be reliable
(13:18):
and dependable and a quarterback's best friend. I mean, I
think that if you would ask Ben Roethlisberger who were
his two most dependable teammates, Heath Miller would be one
and Marquis Ponce would be the other one in terms
of just every play whatever they were asked to do
(13:41):
delivering whatever it was that the offense needed, the team needed.
But when it's the offense, it's certainly what the quarterback
needed as well.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
In that middle of the field aspect too, that that
position just brings to the table when you use tight ends, well,
they feast in that middle of the field. They're big
enough enough to run amongst those linebackers, they're athletic enough
to bang around with the safeties and get open around them.
And I think you've got three guys, two of them
I know can go over the middle and create a
lot of damage with John Who and Pat Fryarmouth and
(14:12):
Darnell Washington, I think is going to be able to
do that a handful of times where you'll see some
chunk plays from him as well.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Yeah, and you know what you really uh, what's really
valuable from a tight end is when he's on the
field and the defense doesn't know whether it's a run
player or a pass Yeah, So you know, there is
no there And there hasn't been in my mind any
kind of question or doubt that Darnell Washington can handle
(14:40):
the blocking aspects of the tight end position, and as
his career has evolved, now he's in his third season,
I think he is developing more as a receiver, and
he's still a very large human being who is not
to be trifled with. If he's blocking you, you know,
(15:01):
either past blocking you, run blocking you. I can't you know,
I could imagine that Darniel Washington is very capable of,
as they say, caving in the side of a line
of scrimmage on defense. I mean, if he would come
off the ball and start drive blocking whoever it might
(15:22):
be opposite him towards the center of the field, not
only is that guy in trouble, but if you're in
the way, you know you can get It's like a
chain reaction car wreck. You don't want to You don't
want to get in the way because you might get
caught in the in the backwash, so to speak.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Another guy I wanted to mention who's been having some
good practices. You know, there's a lot of attention being
paid to the defensive ACKs, the corners, in particular that
trio at the top of the depth chart with Slay
Ramsey and Porter Junior. It has the potential to be
elite and it should just be great. If you don't
want to go as far as elite, But James Pierre
continues to impress. He had a couple of interceptions yesterday,
(16:05):
he had a pass under pressure, he broke up a pass.
I mean, he is making a nice little name for
himself in these early portions of practice, and you don't
want to ever have injury happen. But with Corey Trice
now sidelined again, which has unfortunately been kind of a
history for him LABS, you know, more opportunity for James Pierre,
and he seems to be taking it. And this is
somebody that the coaching staff is already familiar and probably
(16:27):
comfortable with.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Yeah, and he's also a very good special teams player.
That's the key, right, So there's that yes, Because if
you're towards the bottom of the depth chart in the
defensive backfield. We've talked about this a defensive backfield, wide receivers, linebackers,
you know you better be on Danny Smith's good list.
(16:49):
And you know, James Pierre is a guy who can
in coverage. He is what I would call a core
team you know, gunner on punts, on the punt team,
you know, kickoff coverage because you know, as you mentioned
as a his first job or his main job on
(17:13):
defense is finding the ball and getting the guy with
the ball on the ground, and that's certainly a very
big asset for a guy in kick coverage. So, you know,
James Pierre, I think is a guy who I won't
say he was written off this summer, but when the
(17:33):
Steelers made those moves for some of the guys you
mentioned Darius Slay, Jalen Ramsey, won Thornhill, he's a safety,
I get it, but you know, and then you have
Joey Porter Junior. You know, you're looking at who else
you know there is at the position. Brandon Echols is
another corner, and you're thinking, well, this is it for
(17:56):
James Pierre. I mean, he can't make this team, you know,
by the skin of his teeth the last couple of seasons,
and the Steelers decided that they wanted to get better
there and so he's probably going to be one of
the roster casualties. Well then he turns in a game
like or excuse me, a practice like he did yesterday,
(18:16):
and you know, it's not easy to make interceptions in
some of those drills, uh, you know, those one on
one kind of things, because you don't have any you know,
there's not help. So a lot of you know, a
lot of times interceptions come from a guy the interceptor
getting help from other defensive backs or from others in
(18:40):
the area, or you know, the quarterback is trying to
avoid a linebacker or fit it in a window that's
you know, made tighter by a pass rush. He's got
to get the ball over the line of scrimmage or
through hands that are up around the line of scrimmage,
and sometimes that can alter the even when the ball
(19:00):
is thrown, the trajectory with what the ball is thrown,
those kind of things. But when it's one on one
drill and there's no rush on the passer, I mean,
you have to be in really tight coverage and then
defeat another guy to the football. And at the NFL level,
that's not very easy to do u NFL receivers, you know,
(19:23):
because they're trying to make the team as well. And
so James Pierre making those two interceptions, you know, I
don't I'm not ready to anoint him anything or call
him a lock for the roster, but I just want to,
you know, kudos to James Pierre yesterday for the practice
that he had two interceptions in a practice, both of
(19:44):
them coming in you know, one on one drills. As
I said, as Hines Ward will say, you got to
take your hat off and hand it to him.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
We still got a lot more to come today.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
On the training camp report, we'll hear from Tomlin when
we come back and his thoughts following yesterday's practice, Labs.
We'll also give you the weather report for today the
final weekend practice for the Pittsburgh Steelers up at Saint
Vincent College of this twenty twenty five training camp. So
keep it right here listening to Fox Sports Pittsburgh nine
seventy AM and the Steelers Audio.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Network, Iheartradios Live Coverage ob Dot twenty twenty five Steelers
Training Camp is presented by FedEx where Now meets Next
and also brought to you by bud Light, Independence Health System,
by Pennsylvania One Call System, by Live Casino, Calciente Pizza
(20:37):
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Select Realty, the Pittsburgh Steelers Pro Shop and by US steel.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Training Camp Report with Tom Offerman and Bob Labriola Labs.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
He said to start the show.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
It's like a picture perfect day up on campus. If
they had to make a new post scarred to recruit
some incoming freshmen twenty twenty five, they'd put this day
on it. So hopefully that holds up for our weather
for practice today and the Steelers can get a full
padded practice in.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Yeah, the numbers are the correspond to picture perfect day.
Up here are these right now? It's seventy three degrees,
forty seven percent, humidity visibilities ten miles. You know, the
wind is light from the southeast, you know, just enough
(21:32):
really to kind of gently caress the flag hanging over
the one end zone here. Chuck Nolfield, it's you know,
where were these days when we first got here? I
want to know, But you know, maybe there was just
a little bit of misery, you know for what is
(21:54):
now turning out to be a very nice close to
this camp, or let's say this the very nice stretch
leading up to the first preseason game part of training camp.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, no doubt. We talked about this yesterday. You know,
weather's good and adversity is good. But you know, if
those storms come and they can happen a lot and
you get a lot of practice time, Rob, all of
a sudden, you start looking around that NFL landscape lab
and you labs, and you might be a little bit
behind the eight ball compared to the other teams in
the league.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
So good to see that that's not the case.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
That they've kind of really started to develop a nice
practice rhythm here.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Yeah, and you can't make them up, that's the thing, exactly.
And there's no time, there are no days, they're extra
days or any of that kind of stuff. And even
when you get into the little you know what I
call it a mini buy that comes at the start
of the season between the last preseason game and you know,
kickoff weekend, you know, there are rules in the collective
(22:52):
bargaining agreement about what you can and cannot do in
terms of practice during that span. So you miss you know,
some you missed some time up here in terms of
on the field padded practices and stuff. You just missed them.
It's not a situation where back in the old days,
(23:14):
you know, if you were having two a days and
you missed a couple of practices because of weather, well,
you know you were practicing two times a day and
maybe only had you know, you missed two or three
of those, so instead of four or six practices over
those two or three days, maybe you only had four
practices or even even at that. You know, it's it's
(23:37):
not like you're not working at all or trying to
do walkthroughs in a gymnasium or you know. Just so, yes,
it's it's good that we got out of that weather
pattern a little bit that really there was only one
day that was rained out. But you know, again, it's
it's good that it seems like the team is going
(24:01):
to be able to kind of build to a crescendo
as they break camp in terms of the practices getting
done what they had scheduled to get done, and under
decent conditions in terms of very little rain and or lightning.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Coach Mike Tomlin shared his thoughts following Steeler's practice yesterday.
Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Dog days of summer, they had a lot of spirited,
competitive work last night. It's good to challenge them in
this way to come back out and have to perform
the day on a short turnaround. It kind of mirror
some of the things that happened during our journey of
the season. Sometimes they're short weeks and so forth, and
so just wanted to challenge the group to bring the
energy today to compete. We rested some veteran guys, but
(24:47):
it's a component of team development to rest the veterans
while clearing the runway for some guys that could utilize
additional reps. And so I was really pleased with some
of the additional reps distributed to some of the younger
guys and what they would able to do with it.
It's important to day be in really good shape that
positions them to do that, and we're seeing signs of
some of those things. But it's a daily process and
(25:10):
it's fragile this time of year. We got a big
day schedule tomorrow with Family Day, and we'll get highly
competitive as we carry our pads again tomorrow and just
continue with this process. Got a lot of bumps and
bruises associated with this process, but also got some guys
that could be working their way back. Big Oa could
work his way back to us very soon tomorrow. DJ
(25:30):
Thomas Jones, same thing, Ryan McCollum, same thing. Joey Porter,
same thing. We got some guys with some soft tissue
injuries that could be more than a few days like
Corey Trice or Calvin Anderson, and so we'll just march
it day by day and keep working those that are
available to us and try to work hard and smart.
(25:51):
It's our job as coaches to make necessary adjustments. We
reduced to each period the day by a couple of plays.
To pay respect to that. We'll ask those guys to
be on go and work hard. We'll ask those guys
to trust us from a judgment perspective in terms of
what we do and how much of it we do.
But that's life in the season. Coaches don't make plays.
(26:11):
Coaches doesn't play in games. We got to trust them
on game day. They got to trust us from a
planning perspective or a strategic perspective doing prep all pauls
and open up for questions.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
What kind of versatility does a game will bring to
the backfield. It seems like you're looking at him in
a number of different roles.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
He's good. He's good inside the backfield, he's good out
of the backfield. He's a good route runner, he's a
good outside zone runner. He's got a well rounded game.
And that's one of the reasons why we're excited about
acquiring them.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
A couple of guys that made some plays last night
made plays again today.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Miller and Pierre.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Can you speak about how they've helped you, not only
on special teams, going have.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Been called upon an offensive defense.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
And I think that's kind of reflective of who they are.
You know, football players first, whatever we ask you to do,
the more you can do yet value to your cause
in hours, and so I'm excited about those contributions.
Speaker 7 (27:05):
People talked to the officials today about the expanded replayed.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
You feel comfortable with that processes to get close to
simon stadium work.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
There, I am.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
It's about getting it right and getting the right with
fluidity so that the view and the audience doesn't fill
the lag and technology as a component of that. I
think all parties involved are really comfortable with where we
are from some of those things, and so it's probably
a really good thing.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Frank was asking if there was any appetite on behalf
of the competition committee to further consider like misfaced masks
or the right tackles.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
We have zero appetite for adding penalties to the game.
It's about correcting the erroneous ones. That is our position
and that has been our position, and to be quietly
honest with you, I don't see that changing anyone else.
Speaker 6 (27:52):
Broaderick who's been nicked up a little bit now Calvin
has Will you give any thought to looking at Troy
on the left side at all or do you just
want to keep million place?
Speaker 5 (28:00):
No, he didn't have enough experience to do that. If
you watched the day we gave Spencer Anderson some work
out there, he's more experienced than versatile, and so you
know others will be called upon probably before Troy will
all right, Benton, Calvin.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Often those guys just rested or danged.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
Up you can characterize as day to day. You should
see those guys out here pretty soon.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Sealers coach Mike Tomlin talking to the media following yesterday's
haad less practice for the Steelers up at St.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Vincent College Labs. I'm sure you.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Were thrilled to hear him so adamantly say that they
have no interest in adding more penalties to the game.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I'm sure that was music to your ears.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Yes, And you know the other thing is it needs
to whatever the review processes, it needs to be done expeditiously.
The long delays are not good for the fans in
the stands, and I just think that you know that
those people who are sitting out there, oftentimes in clement,
(29:00):
whether need to be considered when a lot of these
decisions are being considered in terms of getting it right
quote unquote, because as Chuck Nole famously once said when
replay first came out, and he was against it, and
someone said to him, but you know, replay is the
(29:20):
point of it is to get the calls right. And
Chuck Nole's response to that was, well, what if they don't.
So there's that too, what if they don't. Jesse James
did catch the ball. I don't care what Al Riveron
said that it was whatever he claimed it was.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Why do you have to bring that up?
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Well, well, that cut me deep too.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
And one other thing that Mike tom Will mentioned was
obviously the injury report. We can get into that kind
of the larger scope of things when it has to
come with the injuries in the next segment. But he
talked about Joey Porter Junior missing a second straight practice yesterday. Yeah,
it doesn't seem like that's anything to worry about. He
certainly doesn't seem worried about it.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
But you know, what I was.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Thinking about the past couple of days since he's been out, Joey,
is that you have now a case where if Porter
Junior has to miss a game, Jalen Ramsey Darius Slay,
you have two really good outside corners.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Still, that's impressive depth.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Yeah, and you still have you know, Brandon Echols exactly.
Mike Tomlin has spoken highly of during at different times
during this camp. You know, last year you didn't have that,
and so yeah, in terms of some of the moves
that were made, and I've said this, you know, losing
(30:41):
Minka Fitzpatrick. I was always a Menca guy. I thought
he was valuable. I thought he brought a lot of
things to the defense. But in the NFL, cornerbacks are
more valuable than safeties. It's it's just the reality. And
so you know, you got to give up something to
(31:01):
get something, and you know, getting a guy like Jalen
Ramsey and then John who Smith was part of that
deal as well. But since we're talking about corners, getting
a guy like Jalen Ramsey, I just think it makes
the defense better because those guys who can run and
cover man to man are such an asset.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
When we come back we'll talk more about that injury report,
and we'll hear from Steeler's backup quarterback Mason Rudolph, who
was pulling first string duty yesterday while Aaron Rodgers had
the practice off. It's Tom Oferman and Bob Labriola on
the training camp report Fox Sports Pittsburgh nine seventy AM
and the Steelers Audio.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Network Iheartradios live coverage. I'm about twenty twenty five Steelers
training camp. He's presented by X where Now meets Next
(32:02):
and also brought to you by First National Bank, by
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Flagging and Traffic Control, and by US Steel.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Labs.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
When Mike Tomlin updated the injury report, seemed like he
was pretty optimistic on guys like Ryan McCollum and Joey
Porter Junior. But then there were some others that he
was less optimistic about. Why don't we just go over
kind of some of the players that found themselves on
this injury report for Mike Tomlin yesterday. We have Azizzi
a Tomoo. The defensive tackle, we have DJ Thomas Jones,
(32:49):
the tight end, Ryan McCollum, Joey Porter, Junior, Keanny Benton,
and Calvin Austin are all characterized as day to day,
so no worries there. But the ones that were a
little bit longer than day to day were cornerback Corey Trice,
in offensive tackle Calvin Anderson. And man, that's a tough
blow to here Corey Trice again last because that's just
kind of been his m in his early NFL career.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
Yeah, and we'll get back to Corey Trice in a second.
I just want to make this point. You know, Calvin
Anderson was the number two left tackle, so that's not
an insignificant situation either in my opinion. You know, Broderick
Jones is a key to this season, and I don't
(33:31):
know that there are any easy, quick fix alternatives if
he doesn't come through in the way that the Steelers
need him to come through at that position. So again,
I'm not We'll talk about Corey Trice here in a minute,
but that's I don't I just don't want to gloss
(33:53):
over Calvin Anderson. But anyway, back to Corey Trice. Yes,
he is one of those you know, big tall, uh
cover corners kind of and you know they're they're very
valuable in the NFL. You know his I'm just looking
here his size, you know it almost six three and
(34:17):
a half, two of four four four seven in the forty.
You know, those are impressive measurables. But it is an
unfortunate reality for Corey Trice that he has had a
series of injuries dating back to his last year in
college at Purdue. So, you know, the the unfortunate thing,
(34:40):
the sad thing when it comes to Corey Trice is
just when you think, okay, he's he's rehabbed, excuse me,
he's rehabbed an injury. Now we get to see him
on the field, and then it always seems like another
injury strikes.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
So he had some playing time at the end of
last year, labs, yes, and he played well.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
I thought, yes, And he has you know, at different
times you know, of the NFL calendar when he has
been healthy, he has looked like a guy wow, you know, wow, right,
it could be maybe a difference making kind of NFL
player too. But again, as I said, it's I feel
bad for the guy. It's sad, but he just he
(35:27):
has no luck with injuries. And it's not as though
his injuries are resulting from him not preparing himself properly,
because that's not the case either, you know, knee ligaments
and stuff like that. You know, there's nothing that's luck
a lot of times. Maybe it's genetics too, I don't
(35:48):
even know, but you know, you can't. There are no
drills you can do. There are no weightlifting you can
do that's going to make an ACL for example, stronger
than what it is. So yeah, it's unfortunate. I don't
know what the injury is specifically. You know, I'm hopeful,
(36:13):
probably more for him as an individual than for the team,
even though a healthy Qurey Trice would be an asset
to this team, no doubt. But you know, he's just
getting to the point where I think that while a
specific injury might not be career threatening for him, I
think the sum total of all of these at some point,
(36:36):
if they continue, is going to be career threatening for him.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Yeah, and you know, you were speaking to how he
has shown flashes to maybe being a difference making NFL player.
I think that the team has noticed that as well.
Labs because of their willingness to kind of keep him
along for these couple of years while he's been dealing
with injuries.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
They see the potential there.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
There's something that they really like in him, and that's
also a test him into what you were saying, that
it's not a matter of him not being prepared right,
or of him being maybe a little out of shape
or not taking it seriously enough the health of his body.
If that were the case, then he wouldn't still be
a Steeler. They wouldn't keep sticking with him. But I mean,
they still see something there. But eventually, you know, it's
just you come to the point where you're at the
(37:18):
end of his rookie deal now and it's almost like
we can't keep affording to try to hope that you
get the health figured out.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Yeah, it's one of those, you know, And it's a
tough spot for the team to be in as well,
because you see his potential, but you just can't count
on him being healthy and so you constantly have to
be thinking of replacing him or at least having someone
else maybe that you can count on, and at some
(37:47):
point continually trying to I won't say replace him, but
have someone who can fill in for him if necessary.
A team is going to come upon someone who can
do that and who is reliable, and so you know, again,
as I said, a specific injury might not be career threatening,
(38:11):
but his situation or history of injuries is going to
become career threatening.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
I think at some point Corey tres Kalvien Anderson's out
longer term. We'll keep an eye on if Joey Porter, Junior,
Keanu Beenten, or Calvin Austin work their way into the
fold at today's practice labs. Before we get to Mason
Rudolph speaking of working your way back into the fold,
Broderick Jones and Isaac Camalou now have started to really
ingratiate themselves into Steelers' practices. Has that kind of been
(38:37):
going well since returning from injury for both of those guys.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
You know, I'm gonna be honest with you, that is
not my forte offensive line play, even when they're playing
in pads, you.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Know, I guess more so, what I'm saying is do
they look healthy? Do they look like they're moving well
out there?
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Well? You know, Broderick Jones has not since coming back,
you know, has not put a succession of practice full
practices together. Now again, that could be, you know, part
of the plan to you know, I won't say ease
(39:17):
him back, but bring him back, you know, in a
way that would not risk reinjury. So you know, I
I really can't speak to that. All I can tell
you is is that neither one of those guys has
been participating fully in practices on successive days, which is
(39:39):
kind of what I think you're looking for.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
That's exactly what I'm looking for.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Well, I don't. I didn't mean just you either. I
just meant you know, as as a team, as a
coaching staff, as a as a fan base. Even so,
it's still to me, uh, you know, on hold so
to speak, in terms of being optimistic or being comfortable
(40:04):
that they're back and raring to go.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Aaron Rodgers had the day off from practice yesterday. That
means Mason Rudolph had first team duties. Let's take a
listen to Steelers backup quarterback and what he had to
say after practice.
Speaker 7 (40:20):
Fit the concepts that you have to the to the players.
I think Arthur's done a good job of that. And
I watched all the games from last year, you know,
with with the the overlays and the play tags, and
I feel like I probably agree with you that there
there's there's been a good many different concepts that have
been installed.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Whether they had that last year.
Speaker 7 (40:38):
And it just didn't fit the style, but I'm real
comfortable with what we got in. I think the guys
have been.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Executing it well.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
How do you like the the tight end heavy packages
with all the various talents you have with Pat, John
and Darnell even even Connor.
Speaker 7 (40:52):
Yeah, it's a it's a it's a virtual group. Darnell
can can block a defensive end, you know, very well.
And then and then also you know, he's caught out
of the balls this camp, and not just short flat routes.
He's been catching the ball on the field. Pat has always,
you know, always uh sure share hands and and you
(41:13):
know a stud you know over the middle. And then
and then John has been very explosive, very very impressive.
I think I think he's gonna help us. He's gonna
add to that to that room quite a bit. Connor
does a great job. Connor's Connor's fast man. He's fast
for for a tight end and he and he makes
a lot of good players so it's it's a great group.
Are you more easy this camp than maybe two years ago,
knowing what you were with what they signed.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
You to come in for manic much a guest thing.
Speaker 7 (41:38):
Absolutely, I'm I'm more at ease. I I uh, you
know I was just a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
I I I've been.
Speaker 7 (41:44):
I'm very grateful to go back here and and and
because I felt like, you know, you never know when
you it could have I don't know if it could
have been my last year or you just hadn't played
him a while and you're you're sitting at the third
string on the depth chart, and you know a lot
has to happen for you to get on the field,
and a lot did happen that year. And I'm grateful,
(42:06):
you know that God forgiving me, you know that that
window of opportunity.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
But it couldn't be more pumped.
Speaker 7 (42:11):
Me back here and and going to work every day
with Mike Tomlin and this and this great ross that
Omar Khins put together.
Speaker 6 (42:19):
You h you told us back after that thing, this
game you were stunning for the real estateing teams.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
He was legit.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
Do you ever think about that? Like here I am
two years later, and I'm still kicking and doing well.
Speaker 7 (42:29):
Think I'm always uh, you know, in the off season,
for sure, we're trying to figure out what you like
because you hear from so many guys. But whether you
make a hundred million dollars or one million, you know,
the transition comes at some point and you you want
to find out what you're passionate about. But uh, I'm
still incredibly passionate about this game, and I love this
game and it is a blessing to come out here
(42:50):
and throw balls to DK Metcalf and Calvin Ridley and
Roman Wilson and you know, uh, Brandon and Ben and
the slew of receivers and tight ends that we have.
It's so fun playing this position, and and I'm so
grateful that I'm still able to do it when.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
You were when you were thrust into that to meet
the most of your opportunity, what's the key in your
current role to stay ready and to maximize your opportunity
if they do the.
Speaker 7 (43:14):
Come Yeah, I think just just uh, it's always that
when you get in the season in the year, are
you are you studying more? Because you know you're not
getting the physical rep so are you are you doing more,
you know, doubling down on the on the mental work
and and and the walkthrough reps and stealing any throws
that you can get after practice. That's that's that is
(43:35):
the way to hang, you know, to to be ready
and when you're called upon it in the NFL is
back to the quarterback to make sure you're sharp and
you're not just coasting through the year because you never.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Know when you're your opportunity is gonna come.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
What's the dynamic like in the quarterback room during meetings?
Speaker 3 (43:48):
How much is Aaron kind of giving input and just
examples of things you've seen.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Throughout these times.
Speaker 7 (43:54):
Yeah, it's not it's uh.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
He is got a great you know, a great social awareness.
Speaker 7 (44:00):
He's not trying to dominate the meeting or step on
the coach's toes, but he is when he's got a
nugget of wisdom, he is absolutely going to speak up
in a respectful way and communicate that to the room
and then that often breeds you know a lot of
conversations and a lot of learning. So that has been
that's been a great resource that you know, I'm glad
I've been that what I.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
Have when you were here with Thornell.
Speaker 6 (44:22):
That's one here.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
How have you seen he's proud? Yeah, he's Uh.
Speaker 7 (44:29):
I don't know how many human beings can run, and
the way he does at three hundred pounds of two
ninety two ninety nine, it's pretty impressive. He's huge, hands,
and he's and he's smart.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
He's a total he's a total package.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Steelers backup quarterback Mason Rudolph after practice yesterday, got a
chance to run with the ones since Aaron Rodgers had
the day off. That will not be the case today
when the Steelers practice. Rogers will return to first team duties.
When Labs and I come back, we'll talk about the
running backs getting the revenge in Backs on Backers yesterday,
how that went, and we'll hear from a star of
training camp so far, tight end Darnell Washington. It's Tom
(45:06):
Aferman and Bob Labriola on the Training Camp Report on
Fox Sports Pittsburgh nine seventy am and the Steelers Audio Network.
Iheartradios Live coverage Job Not twenty twenty five Steelers Training
Camp is presented by FedEx where Now meets Next and
also brought to you by CGR Wholesale Roofing and Sighting
Supply Center, by Tom's Appliances, by Always Safe Flagging and
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(00:30):
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by Castle Rock, by Clearview Federal Credit Union, and by
US steel.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Labs.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Today is the culmination of what is the longest stretch
of Steelers training Camp. This will be the sixth straight
practice for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Half of those have been
in pads, as Tom and put it when he was
coming off the field yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
This truly is the dog days of summer.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Yeah, but what a beautiful picture post card day it
is here in the lovely Laurel Highlands. Really, it is
a pretty day, very nice climate, nice breeze. If Father Paul,
the president of the unit of Saint Vincent College, wanted
(01:18):
a you know, to take a picture, a picture of
the campus to kind of put on a postcard, this
would be the day to shoot it. So let's hope
that what happens on the fields is as pretty for
Mike Tomlin as the scene is for Father Paul. Well.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Even though it will be the sixth straight day for
Steelers practicing, some veterans got the day off yesterday. That
was kind of the theme of yesterday's practice. And I
don't think it is really a head scratcher as to
why Tomlin did that. You had the late Friday night
lights practice in pads, you weren't going in pads yesterday
for Saturday's practice. We have a pretty elder team, to
(02:00):
put it lightly, especially at some very key positions. Want
to keep those guys as fresh as possible. And I'm
assuming labs. I mean, I don't want to speak out
of turn here. You'll correct me if I do. Pads
are going back on today. I'd much rather have the
Rogerses and the Watts and the Haywards of the world
fresh and ready to practice with pads on.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So missing yesterday not that big of a.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Deal, right, And you know, usually one of the kind
of I won't say a rule of thumb, but things
you can kind of count on is since Monday's a
day off, you practice them in pads the day before
because then they have that next day, you know, to
kind of rest and recoup, right, heal a little bit,
(02:39):
if any whoever needs to heal a little bit. So, yeah,
this makes sense. And then the other thing is today
is Family Day up here at Saint Vincent College for
the Steelers, which means, you know, players families, well, players'
families are always welcome here, but this is kind of
a I don't know, a focused family day.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know, it's a Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
It's like a perfect and they're off tomorrow, you know,
so there's there's a lot of things like that.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You can stuff afterwards with your family.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Yes, and Mike Tomlin often will give them the night
off meetings because of its Family Day. A lot of
guys will be going home after practice with their families,
so you know, there's a lot of that kind of stuff.
And the other thing about Family Day is, you know,
(03:34):
while Mike Tomlin often gives them the evening off in
terms of meetings, he also will schedule a couple of
special competitive drills competitive periods, let me say, during Family
Day practice because his belief is that nobody wants to
get their butt kicked in front of their families. So
(04:00):
I don't I haven't seen that schedule yet, so I'm
not sure that this is going to happen. But on
family Day you often see the only repetition of goal line,
so you know it's.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
In the entire camp period.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Again, I mean no promises. He can sneak another one
in there if he has to.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
But we're down to like five five more practices, I
think because now the preseason games are you know, getting close,
and so yeah, I think so I would say that
at Saint Vincent College, this is the only opportunity, clear
cut opportunity for there to be a goal line drill.
(04:45):
So that's you know, it's kind of like seven shots,
only maybe it's a little closer and you know, get
seven opportunities to you know, get the ball into the
end zone if you're the offense.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Something to look forward to today, maybe a little extra
intensity practice if you're there with the families in attendance.
Some of the veterans that were off yesterday we mentioned Rogers,
Hayward and Watt, Darius Slay and DK Metcalf also took
the day off of practice. Jalen Ramsey was dressed and
took part in some drills, but he was kind of optional, right,
It wasn't a full practice for him.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Yeah, I mean he did some things and didn't do
some other things. But in typical Jalen rams Jalen Ramsey style,
he was very involved. That's one of the things I
noticed about Jalen Ramsey. He is not a shrinking violet
by any means. With his teammates, with the coaches, rooting
(05:41):
on the defense, trash talking the offense, you know, whatever
is necessary at that particular moment. So yeah, sometimes it's
hard to tell if Jalen Ramsey is practicing or not
if you just watch him on the sideline because a
lot of for example, Cam Hayward had like a defensive
(06:04):
call sheet. It looked like he had an ear piece
in so he could hear, you know, the communication from
Tara Austin onto the field. Being involved that way, you know,
Jalen Ramsey is pouncing around and as I said, interacting
with teammates, congratulating them for good plays, maybe you know,
(06:27):
mentioning a thing or two to some offensive players after
the defense made a good play. He is he is
involved in It looks like he is certainly into it
and having a lot of.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Fun, you know what.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I think a lot of that can be applied to
the new acquisitions by the Steelers, because, hey, sometimes you
get traded in this league, Labs, and you don't don't
go to a place that necessarily will rejuvenate you in
your latter half of your career, you know what I mean.
But going from Miami, which was a good team the
past couple of years, but coming to a team like
the Steelers, a marquee franchise, like Rogers put it when
he was introduced way back in April or May whenever,
(07:01):
that was a mini camp, and he said, you know,
this is one of the marquee franchises of the NFL.
I played for another one for fourteen years of my career.
It's awesome to be here in Pittsburgh. Like, I just
totally get the sense that Ramsey, you know, just gets
that extra shot of energy, that rejuvenation by coming to
a place like this for a coach like Tomlin and
a team that you know, it's kind of like I
said it yesterday on the Night Show, it's kind of
like the Avengers Labs. I don't know if you've seen
(07:22):
those movies, if you'll get that. But it's like you
just get all these great players together on one team
and there's just an excitement in the building and on
the on the roster.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Yeah, I mean, I don't you know, I don't know
how much time Jalen Ramsey spent at the South Side
practice facility, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
But right that trade came a little later.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Yeah. A lot of the a lot of the newcomers
will remark about six Lombardi trophies lined up in a row, right,
I mean, that's an impressive when you come off the
second floor, law the second floor, I don't know, whatever
it is, the outer area through those double glass doors,
and then on the right the trophies are lined up there,
(08:04):
each one as its individual case. There's a photo spread
from each of those games behind it. You know, they're
all polished up. You know, they look impressive lined up
in a row like that. I'll tell you. You know,
it takes you a little bit of time to just
walk the gauntlet of the trophies. So, yeah, Jalen Ramsey
(08:28):
hasn't He has a Super Bowl ring, so it's not
like he's totally that's totally foreign to him. The concept
of winning a championship at the NFL level. But to see,
you know, a franchise that has six of those, I
would imagine if you're in this in that business and
that is your goal every year as a player, to
(08:51):
see a franchise that has done it six times is
and you're part of that franchise, maybe it is a
little bit of a energy.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Jolt and has that similar goal every year too, you
know what I mean. Like a player might individually be like,
I'm out to win a championship every single time. A
team might say that to the press, but really they're,
you know, rebuilding, They're thinking of some other thing, maybe
years down the road in mind. Not with the Steelers.
Every year, the goal is to get to the playoffs
and make a run in the playoffs.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Yes, yes, now.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
The defense had their way again in seven shots without
Aaron Rodgers. It was Mason Rudolph who was taking the
first team snaps with the offense. Our final score labs
and you can walk us through how we got there.
It ended in five to two. So maybe one of
the more dominant displays from the defense yesterday.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Yeah, there were you know what it seems to me
is there's a lot of traffic in seven shots in
the end zone in terms of trying to find open
receivers when that is the play call, if it's a pass.
For example, yesterday, I you know, besides the one pass
(09:58):
to Darnel Washing and kind of went diagonally into the
back corner, and you know, he caught it with his
hands away from his body, got his toes in feet
in right before he went out of bounds back towards
the corner. It's heavy traffic. There's you know, you're trying
to all the quarterbacks yesterday, for the most part, we're
(10:18):
trying to fit the ball in very tight windows. And
so you know, kudos to the defense for that. I mean, again,
we've gone over this many times. In these kinds of situations.
Some people look at that and say, boy, the offense
isn't really in rhythm yet. Well, or you know, the
defense is playing pretty sticky coverage and making it difficult.
(10:42):
It's not. There have been sometimes where I've noticed, you know,
with Aaron Rodgers, especially at quarterback, some of his quick throws,
his quick reads, those kinds of things makes it look
like stealing. But that's not very That's not the majority
of the time. That's those are I won't say outliers,
(11:03):
but you know they're not as they're not as prevalent
as Wow, that's a tight window he had to throw
that into. Wow, there were a couple of guys right
there in coverage. Wow a guy got his hand on
the ball or at the line of scrimmage or you
know something. So yeah, they call it competition, period, and
it really is being competitive in a lot of that respect.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Well, one person that really shined to yesterday is in
practice and he's kind of really made a name for
himself in this training camp. He already had a name
for himself, but you know what I mean, he's had
an impressive camp.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Titan Darnell Washington.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
We've noted throughout our training camp reports how impressive he
is in backs on backers labs. But we saw his
toe tap ability in seven shots yesterday.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Yeah, it was a it was a really nice catch.
Regardless of the player's position, when it comes from a
tight end, it's a little bit more impressive when it
comes from a tight end. Not named Pat Fryarmouth on
this particular roster. You know, it is not something that
you see all the time, but I think Darnold Washington
(12:10):
is becoming more well rounded, I guess is more versatile
as a tight end. You know, because tight end is
a position where you know the you really kind of
have to be able to do two things, you know,
block and then be a weapon in the passing attack.
And I would say for the most part throughout the NFL,
(12:34):
tight ends are better at one or the other. You
certainly have the receiving tight ends and then you have
the blocking tight ends. But you know, since Heath Miller,
certainly since Heath Miller on the Steelers, the Steelers have
not had a guy who was such a talented I'll
call it two way tight end as Heath Miller was
(12:56):
in terms of being able to hold his own at
the end of hold his own on the line of
scrimmage against oftentimes defensive linemen for the opposing defense, and
then go out into the pass pattern and be reliable
(13:18):
and dependable and a quarterback's best friend. I mean, I
think that if you would ask Ben Roethlisberger who were
his two most dependable teammates, Heath Miller would be one
and Marquis Ponce would be the other one in terms
of just every play whatever they were asked to do
(13:41):
delivering whatever it was that the offense needed, the team needed.
But when it's the offense, it's certainly what the quarterback
needed as well.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
In that middle of the field aspect too, that that
position just brings to the table when you use tight ends, well,
they feast in that middle of the field. They're big
enough enough to run amongst those linebackers, they're athletic enough
to bang around with the safeties and get open around them.
And I think you've got three guys, two of them
I know can go over the middle and create a
lot of damage with John Who and Pat Fryarmouth and
(14:12):
Darnell Washington, I think is going to be able to
do that a handful of times where you'll see some
chunk plays from him as well.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Yeah, and you know what you really uh, what's really
valuable from a tight end is when he's on the
field and the defense doesn't know whether it's a run
player or a pass Yeah, So you know, there is
no there And there hasn't been in my mind any
kind of question or doubt that Darnell Washington can handle
(14:40):
the blocking aspects of the tight end position, and as
his career has evolved, now he's in his third season,
I think he is developing more as a receiver, and
he's still a very large human being who is not
to be trifled with. If he's blocking you, you know,
(15:01):
either past blocking you, run blocking you. I can't you know,
I could imagine that Darniel Washington is very capable of,
as they say, caving in the side of a line
of scrimmage on defense. I mean, if he would come
off the ball and start drive blocking whoever it might
(15:22):
be opposite him towards the center of the field, not
only is that guy in trouble, but if you're in
the way, you know you can get It's like a
chain reaction car wreck. You don't want to You don't
want to get in the way because you might get
caught in the in the backwash, so to speak.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Another guy I wanted to mention who's been having some
good practices. You know, there's a lot of attention being
paid to the defensive ACKs, the corners, in particular that
trio at the top of the depth chart with Slay
Ramsey and Porter Junior. It has the potential to be
elite and it should just be great. If you don't
want to go as far as elite, But James Pierre
continues to impress. He had a couple of interceptions yesterday,
(16:05):
he had a pass under pressure, he broke up a pass.
I mean, he is making a nice little name for
himself in these early portions of practice, and you don't
want to ever have injury happen. But with Corey Trice
now sidelined again, which has unfortunately been kind of a
history for him LABS, you know, more opportunity for James Pierre,
and he seems to be taking it. And this is
somebody that the coaching staff is already familiar and probably
(16:27):
comfortable with.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Yeah, and he's also a very good special teams player.
That's the key, right, So there's that yes, Because if
you're towards the bottom of the depth chart in the
defensive backfield. We've talked about this a defensive backfield, wide receivers, linebackers,
you know you better be on Danny Smith's good list.
(16:49):
And you know, James Pierre is a guy who can
in coverage. He is what I would call a core
team you know, gunner on punts, on the punt team,
you know, kickoff coverage because you know, as you mentioned
as a his first job or his main job on
(17:13):
defense is finding the ball and getting the guy with
the ball on the ground, and that's certainly a very
big asset for a guy in kick coverage. So, you know,
James Pierre, I think is a guy who I won't
say he was written off this summer, but when the
(17:33):
Steelers made those moves for some of the guys you
mentioned Darius Slay, Jalen Ramsey, won Thornhill, he's a safety,
I get it, but you know, and then you have
Joey Porter Junior. You know, you're looking at who else
you know there is at the position. Brandon Echols is
another corner, and you're thinking, well, this is it for
(17:56):
James Pierre. I mean, he can't make this team, you know,
by the skin of his teeth the last couple of seasons,
and the Steelers decided that they wanted to get better
there and so he's probably going to be one of
the roster casualties. Well then he turns in a game
like or excuse me, a practice like he did yesterday,
(18:16):
and you know, it's not easy to make interceptions in
some of those drills, uh, you know, those one on
one kind of things, because you don't have any you know,
there's not help. So a lot of you know, a
lot of times interceptions come from a guy the interceptor
getting help from other defensive backs or from others in
(18:40):
the area, or you know, the quarterback is trying to
avoid a linebacker or fit it in a window that's
you know, made tighter by a pass rush. He's got
to get the ball over the line of scrimmage or
through hands that are up around the line of scrimmage,
and sometimes that can alter the even when the ball
(19:00):
is thrown, the trajectory with what the ball is thrown,
those kind of things. But when it's one on one
drill and there's no rush on the passer, I mean,
you have to be in really tight coverage and then
defeat another guy to the football. And at the NFL level,
that's not very easy to do u NFL receivers, you know,
(19:23):
because they're trying to make the team as well. And
so James Pierre making those two interceptions, you know, I
don't I'm not ready to anoint him anything or call
him a lock for the roster, but I just want to,
you know, kudos to James Pierre yesterday for the practice
that he had two interceptions in a practice, both of
(19:44):
them coming in you know, one on one drills. As
I said, as Hines Ward will say, you got to
take your hat off and hand it to him.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
We still got a lot more to come today.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
On the training camp report, we'll hear from Tomlin when
we come back and his thoughts following yesterday's practice, Labs.
We'll also give you the weather report for today the
final weekend practice for the Pittsburgh Steelers up at Saint
Vincent College of this twenty twenty five training camp. So
keep it right here listening to Fox Sports Pittsburgh nine
seventy AM and the Steelers Audio.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Network, Iheartradios Live Coverage ob Dot twenty twenty five Steelers
Training Camp is presented by FedEx where Now meets Next
and also brought to you by bud Light, Independence Health System,
by Pennsylvania One Call System, by Live Casino, Calciente Pizza
(20:37):
and Drafthouse by Tom's Appliances, South Hills Auto, Laurel, Highlands Visitors, Bureau, Remax,
Select Realty, the Pittsburgh Steelers Pro Shop and by US steel.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Training Camp Report with Tom Offerman and Bob Labriola Labs.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
He said to start the show.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
It's like a picture perfect day up on campus. If
they had to make a new post scarred to recruit
some incoming freshmen twenty twenty five, they'd put this day
on it. So hopefully that holds up for our weather
for practice today and the Steelers can get a full
padded practice in.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Yeah, the numbers are the correspond to picture perfect day.
Up here are these right now? It's seventy three degrees,
forty seven percent, humidity visibilities ten miles. You know, the
wind is light from the southeast, you know, just enough
(21:32):
really to kind of gently caress the flag hanging over
the one end zone here. Chuck Nolfield, it's you know,
where were these days when we first got here? I
want to know, But you know, maybe there was just
a little bit of misery, you know for what is
(21:54):
now turning out to be a very nice close to
this camp, or let's say this the very nice stretch
leading up to the first preseason game part of training camp.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, no doubt. We talked about this yesterday. You know,
weather's good and adversity is good. But you know, if
those storms come and they can happen a lot and
you get a lot of practice time, Rob, all of
a sudden, you start looking around that NFL landscape lab
and you labs, and you might be a little bit
behind the eight ball compared to the other teams in
the league.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
So good to see that that's not the case.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
That they've kind of really started to develop a nice
practice rhythm here.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Yeah, and you can't make them up, that's the thing, exactly.
And there's no time, there are no days, they're extra
days or any of that kind of stuff. And even
when you get into the little you know what I
call it a mini buy that comes at the start
of the season between the last preseason game and you know,
kickoff weekend, you know, there are rules in the collective
(22:52):
bargaining agreement about what you can and cannot do in
terms of practice during that span. So you miss you know,
some you missed some time up here in terms of
on the field padded practices and stuff. You just missed them.
It's not a situation where back in the old days,
(23:14):
you know, if you were having two a days and
you missed a couple of practices because of weather, well,
you know you were practicing two times a day and
maybe only had you know, you missed two or three
of those, so instead of four or six practices over
those two or three days, maybe you only had four
practices or even even at that. You know, it's it's
(23:37):
not like you're not working at all or trying to
do walkthroughs in a gymnasium or you know. Just so, yes,
it's it's good that we got out of that weather
pattern a little bit that really there was only one
day that was rained out. But you know, again, it's
it's good that it seems like the team is going
(24:01):
to be able to kind of build to a crescendo
as they break camp in terms of the practices getting
done what they had scheduled to get done, and under
decent conditions in terms of very little rain and or lightning.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Coach Mike Tomlin shared his thoughts following Steeler's practice yesterday.
Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Dog days of summer, they had a lot of spirited,
competitive work last night. It's good to challenge them in
this way to come back out and have to perform
the day on a short turnaround. It kind of mirror
some of the things that happened during our journey of
the season. Sometimes they're short weeks and so forth, and
so just wanted to challenge the group to bring the
energy today to compete. We rested some veteran guys, but
(24:47):
it's a component of team development to rest the veterans
while clearing the runway for some guys that could utilize
additional reps. And so I was really pleased with some
of the additional reps distributed to some of the younger
guys and what they would able to do with it.
It's important to day be in really good shape that
positions them to do that, and we're seeing signs of
some of those things. But it's a daily process and
(25:10):
it's fragile this time of year. We got a big
day schedule tomorrow with Family Day, and we'll get highly
competitive as we carry our pads again tomorrow and just
continue with this process. Got a lot of bumps and
bruises associated with this process, but also got some guys
that could be working their way back. Big Oa could
work his way back to us very soon tomorrow. DJ
(25:30):
Thomas Jones, same thing, Ryan McCollum, same thing. Joey Porter,
same thing. We got some guys with some soft tissue
injuries that could be more than a few days like
Corey Trice or Calvin Anderson, and so we'll just march
it day by day and keep working those that are
available to us and try to work hard and smart.
(25:51):
It's our job as coaches to make necessary adjustments. We
reduced to each period the day by a couple of plays.
To pay respect to that. We'll ask those guys to
be on go and work hard. We'll ask those guys
to trust us from a judgment perspective in terms of
what we do and how much of it we do.
But that's life in the season. Coaches don't make plays.
(26:11):
Coaches doesn't play in games. We got to trust them
on game day. They got to trust us from a
planning perspective or a strategic perspective doing prep all pauls
and open up for questions.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
What kind of versatility does a game will bring to
the backfield. It seems like you're looking at him in
a number of different roles.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
He's good. He's good inside the backfield, he's good out
of the backfield. He's a good route runner, he's a
good outside zone runner. He's got a well rounded game.
And that's one of the reasons why we're excited about
acquiring them.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
A couple of guys that made some plays last night
made plays again today.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Miller and Pierre.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Can you speak about how they've helped you, not only
on special teams, going have.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Been called upon an offensive defense.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
And I think that's kind of reflective of who they are.
You know, football players first, whatever we ask you to do,
the more you can do yet value to your cause
in hours, and so I'm excited about those contributions.
Speaker 7 (27:05):
People talked to the officials today about the expanded replayed.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
You feel comfortable with that processes to get close to
simon stadium work.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
There, I am.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
It's about getting it right and getting the right with
fluidity so that the view and the audience doesn't fill
the lag and technology as a component of that. I
think all parties involved are really comfortable with where we
are from some of those things, and so it's probably
a really good thing.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Frank was asking if there was any appetite on behalf
of the competition committee to further consider like misfaced masks
or the right tackles.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
We have zero appetite for adding penalties to the game.
It's about correcting the erroneous ones. That is our position
and that has been our position, and to be quietly
honest with you, I don't see that changing anyone else.
Speaker 6 (27:52):
Broaderick who's been nicked up a little bit now Calvin
has Will you give any thought to looking at Troy
on the left side at all or do you just
want to keep million place?
Speaker 5 (28:00):
No, he didn't have enough experience to do that. If
you watched the day we gave Spencer Anderson some work
out there, he's more experienced than versatile, and so you
know others will be called upon probably before Troy will
all right, Benton, Calvin.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Often those guys just rested or danged.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
Up you can characterize as day to day. You should
see those guys out here pretty soon.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Sealers coach Mike Tomlin talking to the media following yesterday's
haad less practice for the Steelers up at St.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Vincent College Labs. I'm sure you.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Were thrilled to hear him so adamantly say that they
have no interest in adding more penalties to the game.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I'm sure that was music to your ears.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Yes, And you know the other thing is it needs
to whatever the review processes, it needs to be done expeditiously.
The long delays are not good for the fans in
the stands, and I just think that you know that
those people who are sitting out there, oftentimes in clement,
(29:00):
whether need to be considered when a lot of these
decisions are being considered in terms of getting it right
quote unquote, because as Chuck Nole famously once said when
replay first came out, and he was against it, and
someone said to him, but you know, replay is the
(29:20):
point of it is to get the calls right. And
Chuck Nole's response to that was, well, what if they don't.
So there's that too, what if they don't. Jesse James
did catch the ball. I don't care what Al Riveron
said that it was whatever he claimed it was.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Why do you have to bring that up?
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Well, well, that cut me deep too.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
And one other thing that Mike tom Will mentioned was
obviously the injury report. We can get into that kind
of the larger scope of things when it has to
come with the injuries in the next segment. But he
talked about Joey Porter Junior missing a second straight practice yesterday. Yeah,
it doesn't seem like that's anything to worry about. He
certainly doesn't seem worried about it.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
But you know, what I was.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Thinking about the past couple of days since he's been out, Joey,
is that you have now a case where if Porter
Junior has to miss a game, Jalen Ramsey Darius Slay,
you have two really good outside corners.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Still, that's impressive depth.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Yeah, and you still have you know, Brandon Echols exactly.
Mike Tomlin has spoken highly of during at different times
during this camp. You know, last year you didn't have that,
and so yeah, in terms of some of the moves
that were made, and I've said this, you know, losing
(30:41):
Minka Fitzpatrick. I was always a Menca guy. I thought
he was valuable. I thought he brought a lot of
things to the defense. But in the NFL, cornerbacks are
more valuable than safeties. It's it's just the reality. And
so you know, you got to give up something to
(31:01):
get something, and you know, getting a guy like Jalen
Ramsey and then John who Smith was part of that
deal as well. But since we're talking about corners, getting
a guy like Jalen Ramsey, I just think it makes
the defense better because those guys who can run and
cover man to man are such an asset.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
When we come back we'll talk more about that injury report,
and we'll hear from Steeler's backup quarterback Mason Rudolph, who
was pulling first string duty yesterday while Aaron Rodgers had
the practice off. It's Tom Oferman and Bob Labriola on
the training camp report Fox Sports Pittsburgh nine seventy AM
and the Steelers Audio.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Network Iheartradios live coverage. I'm about twenty twenty five Steelers
training camp. He's presented by X where Now meets Next
(32:02):
and also brought to you by First National Bank, by
Kalucy Chevrolet, iron Workers Union Number three, by Easy Home Mixteriors,
by S and T Bank, we Max Select Realty, by
Don's Appliances, the Pittsburgh Steelers Pro Shop, by Always Safe
Flagging and Traffic Control, and by US Steel.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Labs.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
When Mike Tomlin updated the injury report, seemed like he
was pretty optimistic on guys like Ryan McCollum and Joey
Porter Junior. But then there were some others that he
was less optimistic about. Why don't we just go over
kind of some of the players that found themselves on
this injury report for Mike Tomlin yesterday. We have Azizzi
a Tomoo. The defensive tackle, we have DJ Thomas Jones,
(32:49):
the tight end, Ryan McCollum, Joey Porter, Junior, Keanny Benton,
and Calvin Austin are all characterized as day to day,
so no worries there. But the ones that were a
little bit longer than day to day were cornerback Corey Trice,
in offensive tackle Calvin Anderson. And man, that's a tough
blow to here Corey Trice again last because that's just
kind of been his m in his early NFL career.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
Yeah, and we'll get back to Corey Trice in a second.
I just want to make this point. You know, Calvin
Anderson was the number two left tackle, so that's not
an insignificant situation either in my opinion. You know, Broderick
Jones is a key to this season, and I don't
(33:31):
know that there are any easy, quick fix alternatives if
he doesn't come through in the way that the Steelers
need him to come through at that position. So again,
I'm not We'll talk about Corey Trice here in a minute,
but that's I don't I just don't want to gloss
(33:53):
over Calvin Anderson. But anyway, back to Corey Trice. Yes,
he is one of those you know, big tall, uh
cover corners kind of and you know they're they're very
valuable in the NFL. You know his I'm just looking
here his size, you know it almost six three and
(34:17):
a half, two of four four four seven in the forty.
You know, those are impressive measurables. But it is an
unfortunate reality for Corey Trice that he has had a
series of injuries dating back to his last year in
college at Purdue. So, you know, the the unfortunate thing,
(34:40):
the sad thing when it comes to Corey Trice is
just when you think, okay, he's he's rehabbed, excuse me,
he's rehabbed an injury. Now we get to see him
on the field, and then it always seems like another
injury strikes.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
So he had some playing time at the end of
last year, labs, yes, and he played well.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
I thought, yes, And he has you know, at different
times you know, of the NFL calendar when he has
been healthy, he has looked like a guy wow, you know, wow, right,
it could be maybe a difference making kind of NFL
player too. But again, as I said, it's I feel
bad for the guy. It's sad, but he just he
(35:27):
has no luck with injuries. And it's not as though
his injuries are resulting from him not preparing himself properly,
because that's not the case either, you know, knee ligaments
and stuff like that. You know, there's nothing that's luck
a lot of times. Maybe it's genetics too, I don't
(35:48):
even know, but you know, you can't. There are no
drills you can do. There are no weightlifting you can
do that's going to make an ACL for example, stronger
than what it is. So yeah, it's unfortunate. I don't
know what the injury is specifically. You know, I'm hopeful,
(36:13):
probably more for him as an individual than for the team,
even though a healthy Qurey Trice would be an asset
to this team, no doubt. But you know, he's just
getting to the point where I think that while a
specific injury might not be career threatening for him, I
think the sum total of all of these at some point,
(36:36):
if they continue, is going to be career threatening for him.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Yeah, and you know, you were speaking to how he
has shown flashes to maybe being a difference making NFL player.
I think that the team has noticed that as well.
Labs because of their willingness to kind of keep him
along for these couple of years while he's been dealing
with injuries.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
They see the potential there.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
There's something that they really like in him, and that's
also a test him into what you were saying, that
it's not a matter of him not being prepared right,
or of him being maybe a little out of shape
or not taking it seriously enough the health of his body.
If that were the case, then he wouldn't still be
a Steeler. They wouldn't keep sticking with him. But I mean,
they still see something there. But eventually, you know, it's
just you come to the point where you're at the
(37:18):
end of his rookie deal now and it's almost like
we can't keep affording to try to hope that you
get the health figured out.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Yeah, it's one of those, you know, And it's a
tough spot for the team to be in as well,
because you see his potential, but you just can't count
on him being healthy and so you constantly have to
be thinking of replacing him or at least having someone
else maybe that you can count on, and at some
(37:47):
point continually trying to I won't say replace him, but
have someone who can fill in for him if necessary.
A team is going to come upon someone who can
do that and who is reliable, and so you know, again,
as I said, a specific injury might not be career threatening,
(38:11):
but his situation or history of injuries is going to
become career threatening.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
I think at some point Corey tres Kalvien Anderson's out
longer term. We'll keep an eye on if Joey Porter, Junior,
Keanu Beenten, or Calvin Austin work their way into the
fold at today's practice labs. Before we get to Mason
Rudolph speaking of working your way back into the fold,
Broderick Jones and Isaac Camalou now have started to really
ingratiate themselves into Steelers' practices. Has that kind of been
(38:37):
going well since returning from injury for both of those guys.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
You know, I'm gonna be honest with you, that is
not my forte offensive line play, even when they're playing
in pads, you.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Know, I guess more so, what I'm saying is do
they look healthy? Do they look like they're moving well
out there?
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Well? You know, Broderick Jones has not since coming back,
you know, has not put a succession of practice full
practices together. Now again, that could be, you know, part
of the plan to you know, I won't say ease
(39:17):
him back, but bring him back, you know, in a
way that would not risk reinjury. So you know, I
I really can't speak to that. All I can tell
you is is that neither one of those guys has
been participating fully in practices on successive days, which is
(39:39):
kind of what I think you're looking for.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
That's exactly what I'm looking for.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Well, I don't. I didn't mean just you either. I
just meant you know, as as a team, as a
coaching staff, as a as a fan base. Even so,
it's still to me, uh, you know, on hold so
to speak, in terms of being optimistic or being comfortable
(40:04):
that they're back and raring to go.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Aaron Rodgers had the day off from practice yesterday. That
means Mason Rudolph had first team duties. Let's take a
listen to Steelers backup quarterback and what he had to
say after practice.
Speaker 7 (40:20):
Fit the concepts that you have to the to the players.
I think Arthur's done a good job of that. And
I watched all the games from last year, you know,
with with the the overlays and the play tags, and
I feel like I probably agree with you that there
there's there's been a good many different concepts that have
been installed.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Whether they had that last year.
Speaker 7 (40:38):
And it just didn't fit the style, but I'm real
comfortable with what we got in. I think the guys
have been.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Executing it well.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
How do you like the the tight end heavy packages
with all the various talents you have with Pat, John
and Darnell even even Connor.
Speaker 7 (40:52):
Yeah, it's a it's a it's a virtual group. Darnell
can can block a defensive end, you know, very well.
And then and then also you know, he's caught out
of the balls this camp, and not just short flat routes.
He's been catching the ball on the field. Pat has always,
you know, always uh sure share hands and and you
(41:13):
know a stud you know over the middle. And then
and then John has been very explosive, very very impressive.
I think I think he's gonna help us. He's gonna
add to that to that room quite a bit. Connor
does a great job. Connor's Connor's fast man. He's fast
for for a tight end and he and he makes
a lot of good players so it's it's a great group.
Are you more easy this camp than maybe two years ago,
knowing what you were with what they signed.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
You to come in for manic much a guest thing.
Speaker 7 (41:38):
Absolutely, I'm I'm more at ease. I I uh, you
know I was just a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
I I I've been.
Speaker 7 (41:44):
I'm very grateful to go back here and and and
because I felt like, you know, you never know when
you it could have I don't know if it could
have been my last year or you just hadn't played
him a while and you're you're sitting at the third
string on the depth chart, and you know a lot
has to happen for you to get on the field,
and a lot did happen that year. And I'm grateful,
(42:06):
you know that God forgiving me, you know that that
window of opportunity.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
But it couldn't be more pumped.
Speaker 7 (42:11):
Me back here and and going to work every day
with Mike Tomlin and this and this great ross that
Omar Khins put together.
Speaker 6 (42:19):
You h you told us back after that thing, this
game you were stunning for the real estateing teams.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
He was legit.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
Do you ever think about that? Like here I am
two years later, and I'm still kicking and doing well.
Speaker 7 (42:29):
Think I'm always uh, you know, in the off season,
for sure, we're trying to figure out what you like
because you hear from so many guys. But whether you
make a hundred million dollars or one million, you know,
the transition comes at some point and you you want
to find out what you're passionate about. But uh, I'm
still incredibly passionate about this game, and I love this
game and it is a blessing to come out here
(42:50):
and throw balls to DK Metcalf and Calvin Ridley and
Roman Wilson and you know, uh, Brandon and Ben and
the slew of receivers and tight ends that we have.
It's so fun playing this position, and and I'm so
grateful that I'm still able to do it when.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
You were when you were thrust into that to meet
the most of your opportunity, what's the key in your
current role to stay ready and to maximize your opportunity
if they do the.
Speaker 7 (43:14):
Come Yeah, I think just just uh, it's always that
when you get in the season in the year, are
you are you studying more? Because you know you're not
getting the physical rep so are you are you doing more,
you know, doubling down on the on the mental work
and and and the walkthrough reps and stealing any throws
that you can get after practice. That's that's that is
(43:35):
the way to hang, you know, to to be ready
and when you're called upon it in the NFL is
back to the quarterback to make sure you're sharp and
you're not just coasting through the year because you never.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Know when you're your opportunity is gonna come.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
What's the dynamic like in the quarterback room during meetings?
Speaker 3 (43:48):
How much is Aaron kind of giving input and just
examples of things you've seen.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Throughout these times.
Speaker 7 (43:54):
Yeah, it's not it's uh.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
He is got a great you know, a great social awareness.
Speaker 7 (44:00):
He's not trying to dominate the meeting or step on
the coach's toes, but he is when he's got a
nugget of wisdom, he is absolutely going to speak up
in a respectful way and communicate that to the room
and then that often breeds you know a lot of
conversations and a lot of learning. So that has been
that's been a great resource that you know, I'm glad
I've been that what I.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
Have when you were here with Thornell.
Speaker 6 (44:22):
That's one here.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
How have you seen he's proud? Yeah, he's Uh.
Speaker 7 (44:29):
I don't know how many human beings can run, and
the way he does at three hundred pounds of two
ninety two ninety nine, it's pretty impressive. He's huge, hands,
and he's and he's smart.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
He's a total he's a total package.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Steelers backup quarterback Mason Rudolph after practice yesterday, got a
chance to run with the ones since Aaron Rodgers had
the day off. That will not be the case today
when the Steelers practice. Rogers will return to first team duties.
When Labs and I come back, we'll talk about the
running backs getting the revenge in Backs on Backers yesterday,
how that went, and we'll hear from a star of
training camp so far, tight end Darnell Washington. It's Tom
(45:06):
Aferman and Bob Labriola on the Training Camp Report on
Fox Sports Pittsburgh nine seventy am and the Steelers Audio Network.
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