Good news, Steelers’ Nation. With the Pittsburgh Steelers announcing at least 12 training camp practices will be open to the public, 2021 is the return of our daily training camp diaries/practice reports. We have tickets for all of the practices right now and barring anything unforeseen, we’ll be there each day. That starts Wednesday, July 28th for a 1:30 practice.
Training camp is a highlight of the year for me, and hopefully you as well. What matters, of course, is the regular season, playoffs, and hopefully Super Bowl, but it all starts in July and August. That’s when the foundation is laid, the roster built, and the sleepers who will help the Steelers on Sundays emerge.
Not having that access and those reports last year was definitely a bummer. It was surprising and disappointing they won’t be returning to St. Vincent College this summer, but it’s good to know the team is offering a solid amount of access at Heinz Field.
Being at Latrobe would still be better for camp reports. Things are a little more spread out, the views are a little better for our purposes, and frankly, driving into the city kinda sucks. But we’ll make due with what we have.
If you’re not familiar with our reports, I’ll link an example of one from 2019 below. Our goal with these daily recaps is to make you feel like you’re sitting next to us at practice even if you’re reading these from halfway across the world (and many people do). We try to be as thorough as possible and capture all the details of the day, big and small. This year’s reports should get posted earlier, too, since practice is earlier than it was at Latrobe (12:15-1:30 this year as opposed to 2:55 at SVC).
After each practice, Dave Bryan and I will record a 30-45 minute podcast recapping the day and running through things position group by position group.
Ace photographer Tim Rice should also hopefully be able to attend a handful of practices, as well. Camp being at Heinz Field may limit us a bit in terms of the equipment we’re allowed to bring in to take photos, but I know he’ll still snap some great shots.
On off-days, we’ll also have stat breakdowns, too. They’ll show things like completion percentages, yards per carry, basic box score stats that we’re not beholden to but help offer context and quantify player performances. We can better conclude if a QB is accurate or not or if a WR is being targeted a lot when we put numbers to it instead of just trying to go off memory where a couple of plays can skew our thoughts.
Even if the location and form will be a little different, I’m thrilled to get back out to training camp. Can’t wait to share everything with you guys and get ready for the season.
