On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers were able to breathe a little bit after a long week of training camp, being able to practice without the pads. Head coach Mike Tomlin also gave several veterans the day off to allow younger guys on the roster a chance to get more reps and show what they can do with the extra opportunities.
While it may have been more of a “low key” day for the players in terms of hitting and contact, Tomlin stated after practice yesterday that the equipment — or lack thereof — shouldn’t correlate to focus or urgency in how the players go about their work.
“One of the major coaching points for [Sunday] is that attire cannot dictate approach or attitude or professionalism,” Tomlin said to the media on video from Steelers.com. “We’ve had a couple of days in pads and that automatically brings a certain level of urgency. We gotta maintain that level of urgency even when we’re not in pads. It’s really kind of indicative of the season. We don’t carry pads all the time during the season, regardless of attire. We gotta come out here and be focused on the work. And so, we talked about that today, but also leading up into an off day. Being able to displace singular focus and being where we are and being productive on the front side of things.”
It sounds like Tomlin called out his team in a way Sunday, addressing the relaxed nature the players may have taken practice after several days straight of hitting and contact. As a former football player myself, going through walkthroughs or practice without pads on requires a lot more mental focus as the pads add a certain level of urgency, as Tomlin mentioned. When you know that contact is going to be involved, you must prepare your body and your mind for that.
That’s where it’s important to keep the same mental focus regardless of the practice environment. After several long days of padded practice with an off day on the horizon, it’s understandable why several players were probably looking ahead, being tempted to go through the motions Sunday without the pads on as they looked forward to a much-needed day off. Still, Tomlin recognizes that his players can’t seek comfort in that and made sure to address it. That has been one of Tomlin’s greatest Tomlinisms over the years as well as the standard is the standard. For Tomlin, the standard is being locked into practice as the end result will affect this team in the regular season.
