LATROBE, Pa. — With a 10-man draft class and a number of promising second-year players poised for further development, Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy didn't want to see them sitting idly by in his first training camp.
That's why if you come to Saint Vincent College, you'll often see the Steelers working full 11-on-11 sessions on two fields, with many of the veterans on one and most rookies on the other. McCarthy tends to spend his time with the younger Steelers in those periods, ensuring that the second field isn't just playing second fiddle.
"We're trying to go at the speed we're going, but we also want the quality of it," McCarthy said Tuesday morning before practice at Chuck Noll Field. "And definitely, we want these young guys to not just stand in line and get one rep in a 1-on-1 drill. We want everybody getting five, six, seven reps."
In order to pull that off, the Steelers have invested in additional video equipment and technology under McCarthy. They have more cameras rolling, more staffers behind those cameras and more work going into building extensive video libraries of each player.
Tuesday was sure to be another productive day for those archives, given McCarthy's stated emphasis on the red zone. The Steelers have honed plenty of 2-minute drills and end-of-game situational football to this point in camp, but McCarthy is ready to home in on what happens inside the 20-yard line.
And he wants to see improvement from the first day in pads. He admittedly wasn't thrilled with how Monday went from an operational and detail standpoint.
"The overall practice was not where you like it to have been. But we looked like it was in pads for the first day, in a new environment, as far as what they're being asked to do," McCarthy said. "So we need to take a big step forward. It needs to be a lot cleaner today."
As for how they do that, McCarthy expects them to lean on everything they accomplished in the spring. He was happy with the boxes the Steelers checked in OTAs and minicamp, as well as how they hit the ground running to begin training camp in the ramp-up stage.
But the intensity rises as the pads come on, the fans fill the stands and Week 1 of preseason — not to mention the regular season — approaches. The attentiveness needs to rise in kind.
"Our guys know the scheme, they know the techniques, but it's time to play them," McCarthy said. "The communication, speed of it, the alignment — that's why we talk so much about pre-snap. We just have to keep stressing each other on the communication part of it."
Defensive coordinator Patrick Graham has done his part to help. His unit has shown the offense a slew of different blitzes and coverages, from pre-snap to post-snap disguises.
Maybe it's coming from the slot, maybe it's coming from the A-gap, or maybe they show pressure and then don't bring any extra rushers at all. McCarthy isn't exactly calling plays in a pivotal AFC North game just yet, but he loves the way it's testing offensive coordinator Brian Angelichio's group.
"This is incredible work for us offensively, and I know we're stressing them, too," McCarthy said. "This is what you want out of training camp. You don't want to ever have to get to a point in training camp and say, 'Hey, can you give me this scheme or this formation or this stress point?' The offense gives the defense that. The defense has definitely given us that."
That also brings us back to the young Steelers, who are not just watching and learning. They're getting hands-on experience.
The elder statesmen of the Steelers have just about seen it all. But it's particularly good when Graham dials up something that might be new to Max Iheanachor, or forces Drew Allar to to adjust.
"Especially for the rookies, they're getting a new game plan every single day," McCarthy said. "That part of it's good. But the pressure work is incredible. You can't have enough pressure work, especially when you get in pads as a football team."
