Elandon Roberts is an eight-year NFL veteran, entering his ninth season. He has played for Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots and for Brian Flores and Mike McDaniel with the Miami Dolphins, but it came as a surprise last year when he reported to Saint Vincent College for his first Mike Tomlin-led training camp with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“I enjoyed, personally, last year. I was kind of like, dang, we really tackling at camp?” Roberts said in a video posted by TribLive’s Chris Adamski on X. “I mean, I was cool with it, but I wasn’t expecting it. So just being able to see that last year, go through a year at training camp, this year’s kind of like, ‘Okay, let’s get the ball rolling.'”
The majority of training camps around the league do not go full contact with players being tackled to the ground. Perhaps the risk of injury scares most off from having that type of physical practice. There are still a few around the league that tap into the old-school way of doing things. Along with Tomlin and the Steelers, Andy Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs have been known to have a physical and rigorous training camp.
The old adage of “practice how you play” is probably a big factor for the coaches who choose to run that style of camp. Long gone are the days of two-a-day practices. Padded practice time in general has been greatly reduced with each passing collective bargaining agreement that gets signed.
With the preseason now down to three games, there simply aren’t enough opportunities for live tackling outside of regular-season games. That could become even more of an issue if the league moves to an 18-game schedule and sacrifices yet another preseason game on the schedule.
I get that one significant injury to the wrong person at training camp can change the entire complexion of a team’s season. But I personally prefer the team to get live tackling work whenever the opportunity is available. It seems like Elandon Roberts, now that he is acclimated to the Steelers’ way of doing things, might agree with that statement.
