41 players came to the 2013 Pittsburgh Steelers rookie camp and most reports suggest 41 players left without suffering a serious injury. That in itself made the first real Steelers practices of the offseason a success. Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin best summed up the rookie camp on Saturday after practice. "This is an instructional camp and obviously there are some things that we are evaluating, but primarily just giving and receiving of information, working with the young people, just laying a foundation for their careers and our football here in 2013," Tomlin said. "We're excited about Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers signed former San Diego State right guard Nik Embernate as an undrafted free agent last week and I came away unimpressed with him after watching him play against Boise State last year. In that game, Embernate had trouble anchoring in pass protection and was on the ground quite a bit after slipping off blocks. At that time I wondered to myself why there was such a fuss about him. Instead of researching him further, I moved on and pretty much wrote him off as being way over hyped. Shame on me. On Sunday I came across a 2011 highlight compilation video of Embernate Read more [...]

Are you ready for an overload of Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark on ESPN this coming week? If not, you better get yourself ready, because Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated is reporting Sunday evening that Clark will be on SportsCenter, NFL Live, NFL32, and ESPN Radio starting on Monday. According to Deitsch, Clark, who is entering the final year of his contract with Steelers, asked ESPN senior coordinating producer Seth Markman at the Super Bowl in New Orleans, if he could intern for the network over the summer in order to hone his broadcasting skills. "I want to show I'm capable Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers selected Oregon State wide receiver Markus Wheaton in the third-round of the 2013 NFL draft and below is my breakdown and grade of the pick. Measurables: Combine Invite: Yes, Height: 5110, Weight: 189, 40 Yrd Dash: 4.40, 20 Yrd Dash: 2.50, 10 Yrd Dash: 1.59    225 Lb. Bench Reps: 20, Vertical Jump: 37, Broad Jump: 10'00", 20 Yrd Shuttle: 4.02, 3-Cone Drill: 6.80 Breakdown: While Wheaton is fast, he certainly isn't as fast as Mike Wallace on the football field and I saw now evidence of an elite top gear. I am not knocking him for that, I am just trying to put the Read more [...]

Many of you probably already knew that the Pittsburgh Steelers did away with mocking the first round of the draft several years ago and now choose to mock themselves instead. General manager Kevin Colbert was asked to explain the process following the draft in an interview with David Todd on ESPN 970. "About five years ago we did away with really the mock scenarios, because it was an endless exhibition of the possibilities and what ifs, and we really didn't want to deal with that, said Colbert. "So what we started to do was we just mocked ourselves and said if he we were picking first, who would Read more [...]

Following a 2012 season that saw him miss three games due to injury and registering just four sacks, starting Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker LaMarr Woodley is certainly under the microscope this offseason. Woodley, who was called out by an unidentified teammate after the 2012 season ended for not being in the best of shape last year, was back in Pittsburgh on Saturday to speak at a luncheon for the P.A.C.T. Initiative and he spoke to Dan Gigler of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about his offseason training. "My offseason is going great. I'm looking forward to getting back with the team Read more [...]

It has long been known that Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Cortez Allen is again working out down in Florida at the Wide World of Sports complex alongside teammates Ike Taylor and William Gay under the watchful eye of renown trainer Tom Shaw, and Ralph Paulk of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review recently caught up with him to talk about the process. "Ike is one of the hardest workers I've met," said Allen, according to Paulk. "Seeing the way he does things is something that I would one day like to model. I'm getting a close-up view of what it takes to play 10 years in this league. "We know what's Read more [...]

According to Mark Kaboly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Twitter, undrafted rookie free agents Mike Farrell and Mike Golic Jr. strictly played left and right tackle respectively during the rookie camp this weekend. With Farrell, that's not a surprise as he started at right and left tackle last season for Penn State. Golic Jr., however, is a different story as he mostly played right guard and some center while at Notre Dame. The Steelers are likely looking at his versatility and also might be short on tackle bodies in addition. It will be interesting to see if Golic Jr. receives reps Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers allowed two of the five safeties that they had on their roster last season to walk off uncontested via free agency this offseason, as Will Allen signed with the Dallas Cowboys and Ryan Mundy signed with the New York Giants. The exodus of those two players left the Steelers with second year undrafted free agent Robert Golden as the only backup safety on the roster with game experience, albeit not a lot. As expected, the Steelers addressed the safety position in the draft by trading into round four in order to select Syracuse safety Shamarko Thomas. Like Golden, Thomas Read more [...]

Despite being severely cap-strapped until June 2nd rolls around, the Pittsburgh Steelers have still been able to sign a few free agents over the course of the last week in the form of running back LaRod Stephens-Howling and punter Brian Moorman. So how are they able to do this with such little cap room? They are doing it with the help of top 51 displacement and one year qualifying contracts. Displacement I have discussed before, and here is a post that I wrote on that subject a little while back. As far as one-year qualifying contracts go, those are given to players with four or more credited Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers wrapped up day two day of their 2013 rookie camp on Saturday and following the practice head coach Mike Tomlin addressed the media on the field. With the OTA sessions now on the horizon, Tomlin was asked if tight end Heath Miller (knee), linebacker Sean Spence (knee) and tackle Marcus Gilbert (ankle) would be able to participate in them. "All of the rehab is going according to plan and really no new news there," said Tomlin. "I did hear the opinion regarding Spence, my opinion differs. I think he's going to have a full recovery, but now you have two opinions, neither Read more [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers rookie running back Le'Veon Bell rushed for nearly 1,800 yards last season at Michigan State and I wanted to have a look at his splits in order to get an idea how he ran directionally. Being as there isn't a site that has those stats, I was forced to scrape them myself from the play-by-play on Yahoo, as they are the only site that I know of that list run directions. Unlike the NFL, however, they only use right, middle and left. After scraping these stats, I had the right amount of carries, 382, but the total yards are off by 7. This could be that Yahoo might list fumble Read more [...]

As you are probably well aware of by now, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders made the ESPN rounds this week and one of those stops included him being a guest on the Dan LeBatard is Highly Questionable show. Sanders talked about his humble beginnings that included having to eat ketchup and mayonnaise sandwiches as a child. Sanders also talks about how he had a temper in high school and had to learn how to control it. I am pretty sure you will be crying yourself, or him, a river after watching this. Also, not really. Read more [...]

The further I get into my research of the Pittsburgh Steelers draft class of 2013, one thing has become very apparent and that is the fact that this is a class of character as opposed to a class with characters like they drafted last year. The Steelers 2012 draft class included three players that had character red flags. Those players were Mike Adams, Alameda Ta'amu and Chris Rainey. Adams, who the Steelers initially pulled off of their draft board following him testing positive for marijuana at the combine, begged his way back onto the Steelers board and thankfully has stayed on the straight Read more [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers second-round draft pick Le'Veon Bell talked to the media on Friday after his first day of rookie camp and answered questions about how his day went, the offense the Steelers plan to run with him in the backfield and the likelihood of him being the Week 1 starter. As far as how his first day of practice in a Steelers jersey went, Bell, who was the second overall running back taken in the 2013 NFL draft, indicated that it went well. "Everything went good," said Bell. "It's a little different from having a college practice to having an NFL practice, but everything went good. Read more [...]

The first day of rookie camp for the Pittsburgh Steelers has come and gone and several members of the media are now weighing in with their thoughts after observing the Friday practice. Mark Kaboly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that first-round draft pick Jarvis Jones appeared to him to be undersized and that has been one of my own concerns all along about the former Georgia linebacker. "First-round pick Jarvis Jones looked tremendously undersized especially compared to Woodley and Jason Worilds," writes Kaboly. "Now, his speed, that’s just fine. Jones showed that off a couple Read more [...]

John Clayton of ESPN mentioned on Thursday’s episode of NFL Live that the Pittsburgh Steelers are expected to sign free agent wide receiver Steve Breaston within the next couple of weeks. The Steelers brought Breaston in for a visit several weeks ago following his release from the Kansas City Chiefs, but chose not to sign him at the time. There were reports at that time that suggested Breaston, who was originally drafted by the Arizona Cardinals, had inflammation and early arthritic symptoms in one his knee and that he was considering Regenokine treatment, a procedure that entails removing Read more [...]

The first day of rookie camp for the Pittsburgh Steelers appears to now be in the books and first round draft pick Jarvis Jones talked to members of the media following the practice. According to Aditi Kinkhabwala of the NFL Network on Twitter, Jones said that following him being drafted by the Steelers, LaMarr Woodley, Troy Polamalu and Ike Taylor all called him draft night to welcome him to the team. "I’m going to get up on those guys wings and learn everything I can," said Jones, who just so happened to work out with renown trainer Tom Shaw this offseason down in Florida, presumably Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers drafted Samford defensive tackle Nick Williams in the seventh and final round of the 2013 NFL draft with hopes of eventually turning him into a 3-4 defensive end. Samford defensive coordinator Bill D'Ottavio was a guest of David Todd's this past week on ESPN 970 radio and was asked to talk about his former player. D'Ottavio was first asked to talk about what kind of player the Steelers were getting in Williams. "I think they got a great guy, right there in Nick," said D'Ottavio. "Obviously he was an excellent football player for us, and he's an excellent young man Read more [...]

New Pittsburgh Steelers wide receivers coach Richard Mann had his first real talk with media following the selection of Oklahoma wide receiver Justin Brown in the sixth round of the 2013 NFL draft. After talking about Brown, Mann was asked if he had to adapt to the style of offensive coordinator Todd Haley or did he bring in his own concepts. "I've been around the track a little bit," said Mann. "Usually there isn't too much that I haven’t seen. What I have to get used to is the verbiage. A lot of the same concepts, but they call them different names. I think that’s the biggest thing. A Read more [...]