By Mike Defabo / The Athletic
No air conditioning in the dorm rooms. Two practices per day, with pads, seven days a week, full of live hitting.
For former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Craig Wolfley, training camp at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania was a “totally different environment” when he suited up in the 1980s under Chuck Noll. Every day, twice a day, the Steelers practiced in pads — first with a morning session to work on the running game and later in the afternoon to focus on the passing game.
“They didn’t even dry off your pants and jerseys” between practices, Wolfley recalled.
Wolfley, 66, now a Steelers radio analyst, joked that he could have a degree from St. Vincent after all the grueling, six-week camps he attended as a player. But even he heard old-timers like Andy Russell talk about nine-week camps, which bruised their bodies and tested their will in the 1960s and 1970s.
“You came together as a team because it was blood, sweat and tears the whole training camp,” Wolfley said. “Chuck Noll training camp was never about making the team. It was about always surviving the moment.”
For generations of football players — from youth leagues to high school to college and into the pros — long, physical days full of hitting were the norm. The more you hit, the tougher you became. At least that was the thinking.
But times change, and so too have the ways teams prepare for the NFL season.
Because athletes are now working out year-round, there is less need to work them into shape in the preseason. At the same time, rules under the 2011 collective bargaining agreement eliminated two-a-day practices. The physicality has also been dialed back. Today, in many NFL training camps, if you see a ball carrier or a receiver tackled to the ground, it is usually an accident.
“I don’t know how many NFL teams are full-on tackling,” Steelers quarterback Justin Fields said. “It’s got to be under three, if they are.”
So how many teams do engage in live tackling during training camp? In an informal poll conducted by The Athletic, 24 of 32 beat writers (75% of the NFL) said the team they covered rarely or never tackled players to the ground. Four teams tackle in practice sometimes, but typically for short periods with second- or third-team players. Three teams tackle often, including Andy Reid’s Kansas City Chiefs, Mike McDaniel’s Miami Dolphins and Dan Campbell’s Detroit Lions.
Coach Mike Tomlin’s Steelers are in many ways an outlier. When veteran linebacker Elandon Roberts arrived in Latrobe last season for a three-week destination camp, he was, like Fields, initially taken aback.
“I was kind of like, dang, we’re really tackling in camp,” said Roberts, who spent four years with the New England Patriots and three with the Dolphins before joining the Steelers. “I was cool with it, but I wasn’t expecting it.”
On a typical day in pads, it is common to see the Steelers engage in periods of full, live tackling. Each practice begins with a drill called Seven Shots — seven chances from the 2-yard line — in which it would not be uncommon for a starter like Najee Harris or a key rotation player like Jaylen Warren to be tackled to the ground.
In many other 11-on-11 settings, the Steelers still see the value in live tackling, including short-yardage and goal-line drills. Additionally, twice this training camp, the Steelers staged spirited backs on linebackers drills, where high-speed collisions simulate live pass protection situations.
As the Steelers packed up and moved out of their dorm rooms at St. Vincent last week, they completed what was probably the most physical training camp in the NFL.
“You can’t box without sparring,” Tomlin said. “We play an intense game, competitive game, and I’m not doing these guys justice if I don’t create an environment that is reflective of what’s waiting on us.”
In 2007, when Tomlin became the NFL’s youngest head coach at 34 years old, he inherited a veteran-laden team full of many players who hoisted the Lombardi Trophy alongside Bill Cowher in 2005.
During his first training camp in Latrobe, Tomlin set the tone, making a statement that there was a new sheriff in town. This was not Cowher’s team anymore.
Now in his 17th season and at 52 years old, Tomlin has gone from the youngest head coach in the league to the NFL’s longest-tenured. His first training camp in Latrobe feels like a lifetime ago.
“Man, that was a different time,” Tomlin said. “That was medieval times.”
Even the oldest players on the Steelers’ current roster — Russell Wilson and Cameron Heyward, both 35 — never participated in two-a-days at the NFL level. The approach was banned under the new agreement in 2011, Heyward’s first year in the league and one year before Wilson was drafted. (The NCAA eventually followed suit and ended two-a-day practices with contact in 2017.)
There’s no question Tomlin’s philosophy has evolved, to a degree. In adherence with the collective bargaining agreement, padded practices have been scaled back considerably during the season. Often, if Tomlin makes the Steelers wear pads during the season, it is to make a point that physicality is lacking on Sundays. Even early in camp, Tomlin will hold out veterans like T.J. Watt, Minkah Fitzpatrick and Heyward to protect them from themselves.
Tomlin also used to intentionally schedule training camp practices during the hottest time of the day to manufacture adversity. He has since changed his approach with a new strength and conditioning staff to practice earlier in the morning when it is cooler.
At the same time, the coach still very much sees the value in creating gamelike situations in Latrobe — and so do the players.
“I love it,” Warren said when asked about the environment Tomlin creates. “Although the days get hard, I love what it brings and what it creates.”
When the Steelers hired Arthur Smith, who is known for his run-heavy, tight-end friendly offenses, as their new offensive coordinator, Smith made a point to say he wants to have the most physical offense in the league. That has carried over to the practice field.
“Whether that’s being part of the run game or getting yards after the catch, he wants all 11 to be physical,” wide receiver Van Jefferson said. “He wants to be a physical offense. He’s instilled that in us from Day 1.”
What will it all mean when they finally start the season? Coaches often say that coaching a football team does not come with an instruction manual. And while there is no perfect answer when it comes to how much hitting is enough (and how much is too much), the Steelers believe that through their physical approach, they have begun to establish the identity that will carry them through the season.
“Other teams, they know what it is when they play the Steelers,” Warren said. “You can see what we built here.”
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