LATROBE, Pa. – With a crowd of 12,268 on hand for the Steelers' annual "Friday Night Lights" practice at Latrobe Memorial Stadium, the team seemed to feed off the energy provided by the crowd.
Head coach Mike Tomlin was pleased by the work put in by his team, who returned to a padded practice after being given the day off from pads on Thursday.
"I can't say enough about this atmosphere tonight," Tomlin said. "We can't say enough about the relationship we have with this community. We appreciate their support. Hopefully, we showed that with our effort tonight. We had a high-intensity practice. But it's part of the process. It's iron on iron, Steelers versus Steelers. We do it with a mindset that we're working toward something. There's only one way to do it. There are no shortcuts. I tip my hat to the guys for the intensity they brought tonight."
Leading that charge were running backs Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren.
Not only did they run hard when they got the ball, in the "Backs on Backers" drill, which heavily favors the defenders, both running backs brought and edge to the table.
After tight end Darnell Washington and linebacker Alex Highsmith split reps to start the drill, Harris stepped in against linebacker Patrick Queen. Queen tried to go through Harris and the running back tossed him to the ground.
Queen got up yelling for a rematch. On the second rep, Queen tried to bull through Harris to no avail, and the two players had words.
Then, it was Warren's turn against linebacker Elandon Roberts against Warren, and Warren stood up to a hard hit from Roberts before that rep was run back, with Warren this time flipping Roberts to the ground. A scrum ensued with both running backs right in the middle of everything.
Both Queen and Roberts are considered excellent pass rushers at inside linebacker. But Harris and Warren were up to the task.
"I can't say enough about those top two backs, Naj and Jaylen," Tomlin said. "They set the tone for the drill. That's a drill that's advantage linebackers, obviously. But when you've got some strong-minded runners, it makes it highly competitive. Those two, in particular, don't run from the fight, they run to the fight. I respect it."
Washington again stood out, beating all rushers, including stopping DeMarvin Leal twice off the edge and then flipping to the other side and stoning Nick Herbig on a spin move and throwing him to the ground. Herbig did turn the corner on his next rush against Washington, but slipped to the turf.
OBSERVATIONS: Leal has been very active with his hands knocking down passes at the line of scrimmage in this camp and also is making hustle plays downfield. On one play in team drills, he ran down a wide receiver 20 yards downfield as the receiver tried to cut back. Though Harris got the better of Queen in "Backs on Backers," Queen got his revenge by blowing up a screen pass from Justin Fields for Harris and dropping him for a 5-yard loss. The next play, another screen pass, was batted down by Cam Heyward. Russell Wilson continued to do some handoffs in 11-on-11 team running drills and throwing in 7-on-7. But the quarterback was in full pads and helmet tonight. Cam Sutton had a nice pick of Kyle Allen at the goal line in a red zone drill. Sutton jumped a route over the middle and likely would have gone for a touchdown the other way.
7-SHOTS: The offense had its best showing of this training camp, winning all seven possessions, Justin Fields threw a pair of touchdown passes to George Pickens, the first at the goal line with safety Damonte Kazee boxed out, the second in the back of the end zone as he split the safeties. Fields also faked an inside handoff to Jaylen Warren and tossed an easy TD pass to a wide open Pat Freiermuth in the left flat for a score. Najee Harris also got in behind fullback Jack Colletto for the first-team offense. Kyle allen threw a touchdown pass to tight end Rodney Williams, who did a nice job of getting his feet down in the back of the end zone for a score. Allen then had a handoff to La'Mical Perine, who followed Colletto into the hole before bouncing it to his left for a score. Tomlin brought the first-team offense and defense back onto the field to perhaps allow the defense to save face, and Fields attempted a fade to Pickens. The ball was high, but corner Joey Porter Jr. was flagged for defensive holding, giving the offense the win.
TOMLIN'S INJURY UPDATE: "Bumps and bruises associated with play. Nothing of any significance. I'll have more information as we move forward tomorrow."
