The pads came on today at Saint Vincent College, and the intensity ramped up at practice as a result. The first four days of training camp are valuable in their own way, but nothing matches when the live contact starts.
During Seven Shots, a drill where the offense and defense line up near the goal line for seven opportunities to score (or prevent the score), the offense started with a run play right up the middle. It resulted in a Najee Harris touchdown. According to Dan Moore Jr., the play call was very intentional.
“It’s definitely tone setting,” Moore said in a video posted by The Athletic’s Mark Kaboly on X. “Coach [Mike] Tomlin talks about, he doesn’t want the defense to let the offense run it in, so, we always talk about running it in anyway. That’s the mindset that we want to have, especially with it being Seven Shots. Obviously there’s a lot of trash talking, so we just wanted to put a little emphasis on it today.”
The Steelers’ offense was 25th in the NFL last year in touchdown percentage from the red zone. Far too many drives ended in field goals. The Seven Shots drill places an emphasis on being able to punch in short-yardage situations for a score.
Based on what the team did to finish last season on the ground, and the moves it made this offseason, the Steelers should be a run-first unit. That is not going to catch any defenses off guard. Because of this, they need to be able to run the ball despite stacked boxes and defenses keying in on the run. The Steelers had the sixth-best red zone defense in touchdown percentage last season, so this was a good test on the first padded practice to see what they are capable of.
The early look was good. After losing the majority of the first four days of practice to the defense in this drill, the offense went 4-3 today to take home the win, including a 4-1 record with the starting offense and QB Justin Fields.
Here is the play-by-play breakdown of today’s Seven Shots, per The Athletic’s Mike DeFabo on X.
Two rushing scores for Harris, one for Fields on the QB keeper, and one beautiful one-handed grab by George Pickens in the back of the end zone.
Nothing is more demoralizing for a defense than getting run all over. That is exactly the type of offense that Mike Tomlin had in mind when he hired Arthur Smith and the team drafted three offensive linemen over their first five picks of the draft. And from the sound of it today, the defense may have been a little demoralized.
“It was real quiet,” Moore said of the defense after getting beat in Seven Shots. “Y’all noticed it was real quiet today, so I don’t know. We’ll see. I couldn’t tell if they were upset or if they didn’t care, I don’t know.”
That is exactly the type of effect the Steelers want their running game to have on opposing defenses this season.
The offense is going to continue trying to run the ball as much as possible. It will be fun to watch how the defense adapts from here, and whether the offense can sustain this level of rushing success near the goal line.
