Mike Tomlin would typically be commenting around this time of year how he doesn't put too much thought into what happens in "football in shorts," what he calls offseason workouts.
This year, Tomlin would be happy to see a little football in shorts. Heck, the Steelers' head coach will be happy when he gets to see any football again.
With things shut down because of the coronavirus outbreak, the NFL has forced its teams to close down its practice facilities. And they won't open again until all teams can return in order to keep a competitive balance across the league.
That means teams are limited to holding meetings virtually, something the Steelers have been doing. The Steelers have been holding a virtual rookie minicamp this weekend to help get their rookie class acclimated to life in the NFL -- at least as much as they can.
Friday, that meant Tomlin had recently retired guard Ramon Foster, a new contributor for DKPittsburghSports.com, address the team's rookie class.
"We were excited about that, and Ramon delivered in a big way," Tomlin said Saturday. "I thought he was a great guy to welcome those guys, a guy that understands the journey that many of those guys are attempting to walk. He’s a guy who was an undrafted guy and went on to have a great career that lasted over a decade and was just a well-respected professional and a recently retired professional. He’s very fresh to getting off the field. I thought the perspective he had would be a good one. I thought he did an awesome job."
Foster, of course, recently retired following an 11-year career with the Steelers after initially making the team as an undrafted rookie in 2009.
It's all part of letting the rookies know what is in store for them as new professional football players. To that end, part of the day was spent Saturday introducing the young players to the Steelers' support staff and letting them know what each of those individuals does and where they are located in the Rooney Sports Complex.
As for football itself, that will continue to be a work in progress.
"We’re not in the evaluation stage," Tomlin said. "We’re in a teaching and instructing stage right now, and we will be in that until we get into a football-type environment and a training camp-like setting and we’re playing a game. All the things we’re doing for them right now is preparing them for that."
As such, they're trying to learn as much as possible about each individual and how they learn. But there are obvious drawbacks. Typically, the coaching staff would go over plays or concepts in a classroom setting. Then, the team would practice and see who could take those things from the classroom to the field.
With things shut down, it's all classroom work and nothing else.
"The amount of information or the information you choose to give to guys typically evolves and changes, anyway, because of the evolution of us and what we aspire to be," Tomlin said. "There are probably some changes in terms of the amount of information we’re giving them, but there are probably changes every year. The evaluation of their ability to absorb the information, the retention of the information, is probably the most significant difference of working in this setting. It’s much more difficult to get the feedback, to get the feel of whether somebody is retaining that information when you’re working in a remote setting."
But it is the hand NFL teams have been dealt.
It could make things difficult on this rookie class, at least in the short term. They'll have less time and less information with which to prepare to make a team or to learn how to deal with the grind of the regular season.
The long-term effects? Who knows.
"We don’t have the answer to that," Tomlin conceded. "One thing you have to acknowledge is that in these circumstances, there are certain things you don’t have the answer to. This class is going to be affected by these circumstances. It will be fair in that this class globally will be affected by these circumstances, not only the Pittsburgh Steelers, but all of the rookies throughout the NFL. I’m sure it will affect, in some circumstances, their ability or their amount to participate and their contributions."
But if the coaching staff can help make things easier, it will do so. Some teams have chosen not to hold offseason virtual OTAs. The Saints, for example, told their players they won't do anything until training camps open -- if that happens.
And if things open back up earlier -- both at the league level along with locally -- the Steelers plan to be ready to get players back onto the field.
"We’re in a wait-and-see mindset," Tomlin said. "We’ll be ready to go when both of those boxes are checked. Until that time, we’ll focus our energies on what is available to us and take advantage of that.
"We want to drop a couple of stakes in the ground and lay a foundation in terms of an introduction or our organization and us."
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