LATROBE, Pa. - The third practice at St. Vincent College was the first in pads and football pants and the Steelers put both to good use.

There were a couple of notable exceptions, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger being one of those.

"Obviously we're not going to hit him in these circumstances because he's making $100 million," defensive coordinator Keith Butler said. "So we're not going to hit him."

Just about everyone else was fair game.

"I wanted to see some physicality out of our guys," Butler said. "We want to be pretty good against the run and we were for the most part. We want to rush the quarterback. When he has to hold onto the ball we want to be able to hit him. We want to be able to do that when we're rushing four.

"There were some glimpses of it. We gotta get better, though."

Offensive coordinator Todd Haley, likewise, greeted the first day in pads with an obvious sense of anticipation.

"Exciting day for all of us," he assessed. "We're all excited to be in pads. You're looking forward to hearing the popping of those pads and we heard a lot of it.

"It looked like everybody was excited to be out there competing."