The Pittsburgh Steelers haven’t held a joint practice since 2016, when the Detroit Lions came to Saint Vincent College. Since then, Pittsburgh has kept things in-house, only seeing new opponents during preseason games. During an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show, Omar Khan explained that, while there’s no real reason Pittsburgh hasn’t had a joint practice, the team is comfortable with the level of physicality at its own camp.
“There’s no real specific reason,” Khan said. “We’ve done it recently with the Bills and Lions, I think maybe five or seven years ago we did it. But for us, it’s just kind of worked out coming to camp and we have a pretty good camp. We like the physicality of it.”
Khan said teams have conversations about joint practices as soon as the preseason schedule is about to come out, and that they entertain some of the conversations.
“We always entertain a couple of them,” he said. “It just, logistically, several reasons don’t work out. Who it is, maybe, it just doesn’t work out.”
Reading between the lines a little bit, it sounds as if some of the issues regarding joint practices is that other teams wouldn’t want to be as physical as Pittsburgh is. Mike Tomlin loves getting guys in pads and having live football with minimal restrictions. If other teams don’t want that level of physicality, the Steelers aren’t going to participate in a joint practice.
As it stands, joint practices can already leave you exposed if you’re breaking out plays for an opponent that you might see over the course of the season or in the future. You don’t really want to give anyone an edge over you and having them see how you operate up close might give just a bit too much information.
It’s clearly been a conscious decision not to have joint practices. As Khan said, they at least entertain calls and offers to have them, but it hasn’t worked out from Pittsburgh’s side. At this point, it seems as if keeping the structure and semi-regular routine of training camp is what Khan, Tomlin and the rest of the front office and coaching staff deem best to get Pittsburgh ready for the regular season.
Focusing on a common opponent in the preseason and getting ready for the regular season while ramping up in-house in practice has worked for the Steelers, and there’s not really much of a need to mess with that routine now. It doesn’t sound as if Khan is too upset, or upset at all, about the Steelers not having joint practices, and it doesn’t seem as if it’s something that will become part of training camp unless they get an offer they really like.
