A new wrinkle to Pittsburgh Steelers training camp is that linemen have to run after making mistakes, and today, two rookie offensive linemen in Troy Fautanu and Mason McCormick had to run after a false start. The rookie offensive lineman who didn’t was center Zach Frazier, and he said that making the linemen run is a “great motivator.”
“It’s a great motivator because it’s embarrassing when you have to take off and run a lap. That’s just because the pre-snap stuff you can’t have, so we gotta get that cleaned up, and one way to try and stop it is to make guys take a lap,” Frazier said via 93.7 The Fan.
#Mountaineers rookie Zach Frazier on #Steelers OL/DL being called out and running a lap for mental errors pic.twitter.com/ZIKUhVu8qT
— 93.7 The Fan (@937theFan) July 28, 2024
It’s embarrassing to be singled out for a mistake and forced to run because of it. While embarrassment alone won’t prevent pre-snap mistakes, it’s certainly not going to hurt when looking to prevent them. Pre-snap penalties are incredibly costly, and any method to try and cut down on them is worthwhile.
From the sounds of it, it’s working, too. Frazier said it’s motivating the guys, and Mike Tomlin said in his post-practice press conference that the Steelers are looking to use “all the tools at our disposal” to help players learn.
“We’re just trying to accelerate the learning process an using all the tools at our disposal in an effort to do so.”
Obviously, it’s not just the young guys who have to run if they make a mistake, but younger players are naturally going to be more prone to mistakes as they adapt to the league and a new system. But with Arthur Smith as Pittsburgh’s offensive coordinator, it’s a new system for everyone on offense this year, and mistakes are going to happen early in camp.
As camp rolls on though, mistakes should be happening less and less. Punishing mistakes with a lap is a good way to make sure that mistakes don’t become habitual, and it’s something that will be on the minds of players. Honing in on the snap count and each guy doing their job to prevent having to run a lap (and as a former offensive lineman, I can attest that running a lap in the heat is not fun) could help some of these mistakes dissipate.
Ultimately, we’ll see how effective these efforts were when the season starts and we’ll learn whether or not the Steelers can cut down on their pre-snap penalties. If they do, give credit to the staff for coming up with the idea to penalize mistakes.
