So, head coach Mike Tomlin’s big solution to the changes needed for the Pittsburgh Steelers this week was actually practicing in pads for the first time since training camp. By no means was that the answer that anybody was looking for, but DL Cameron Heyward explained why that is important—even though he won’t be playing himself Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens.
“It just means we’re gonna harden ourselves for this fight”, he said on his Not Just Football podcast. “I think with the padded practices you get more hitting, offensive linemen are gonna sustain blocks a little bit longer, defensive linemen are gonna attack the line. Running backs are gonna be tackled a little bit more. Linebackers get to fit up and really come downhill”.
Okay, that all sounds well and good, and yes, padded practices exist for a reason. There are only so many times teams are permitted to practice in pads during the regular season, of course, so they must be distributed judiciously.
But there’s something else about padded practices that seems equally important to Heyward. It’s humbling, in a way. There’s no hiding, no pretending, even in your own self-evaluation. When you’re in pads, you either do it or you don’t. There’s no guesswork.
“Sometimes when you don’t have all your pads on, you can get into a false sense of security”, he said, “where you think, ‘Oh, I made that play’, or ‘I would’ve made that play’. Man, you’ve got to show that in practice, because I feel like that’s the only way to show if you’re ready for a game”.
It should be said that this Steelers team has looked an awful lot like a group that probably feels like it’s capable of making a lot of plays that it isn’t making. Things that look good in practice are not showing up the way they’re drawn out when it comes time to do it for real.
Yet the thing that I just can’t get past is the simple reality that they practiced extensively in pads during training camp, yet that seemed to have no carryover. I will make no argument against the idea that they can use a refresher in physicality, but I struggle to buy the notion that one day of practice in pads is going to make a significant difference.
The Steelers have often played this season like they never saw pads before the opener. It shouldn’t be that way. They shouldn’t need to warm up so much to the physicality of the game when it’s supposed to be such a cornerstone of their identity as a football team.
It’s actually kind of embarrassing. I’m sure the Steelers are not the first team this season that is putting the pads on for the first time. It’s possible they’ve played at least two or three teams already who hadn’t done so, and yet they have been overmatched in the physical aspect on more or less a weekly basis.
