Veteran team hopes to find normalcy
Pandemic altered path to ’ 20 season
Ready or not, fans or no fans, the Steelers find themselves in a place where many wondered they would ever arrive — embarking on a regular season that will be unlike any other.
Appropriately, they began their work week on Labor Day for Monday’s season opener against the New York Giants — an ironic starting point after a laborious offseason filled with skepticism and concern, not to mention canceled spring practice sessions and preseason games.
After staging training camp at a site different from their previous 54 years, the Steelers returned to their familiar home — UPMC Rooney Sports Complex on the South Side — and hoped to regain some sense of normalcy entering the regular season. If, of course, such a thing is possible in a pandemicaltered world.
“I like normalcy, but I understand right now that we have to abide by some of the protocols that are going on,” Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey said.
That included trying to make decisions on players without the benefit of preseason games. The Steelers had five scheduled, including the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio, but those opportunities to evaluate young players, particularly draft choices, were eliminated with the cancellation of the preseason.
As such, only one undrafted rookie free agent — cornerback James Pierre of Florida Atlantic — made the 53- man roster. But five of their six draft choices survived the final cut. The only casualty was hybrid safety Antoine Brooks Jr., their sixth- round pick.
“I don’t know if I’m comfortable,” coach Mike Tomlin said of the limited process to evaluate players. “It’s kind of a new calendar, but I find comfort in the fact that it’s new for all of us, globally, in the game of football.”
The Steelers, though, can take comfort in knowing they have 23 starters returning, including specialists — as many as any NFL team. That includes quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who hasn’t appeared in a game since he injured his elbow in the second quarter of Week 2 last season.
“I think where we might have an advantage over some teams is, I’d like to think because we have more of a veteran team, veteran coaching staff, things like that,” said Roethlisberger, who begins his 17th season with the Steelers. “I’d like to think that maybe we have not as much behind the eight ball as maybe other teams are.”
Also included in that group is defensive end Stephon Tuitt, who missed the final 10 games of 2019 with a torn pectoral muscle. The return of Roethlisberger, coupled with the addition of tight end Eric Ebron and rookie receiver Chase Claypool, is expected to put the offense back on par with a defense that led the league in sacks ( 54) and takeaways ( 38) in 2019.
“To see him back there, to see how comfortable he’s been and to see how motivated he is, to watch his whole process of going through the surgery to being able to come back like this in Year 17, has been incredible to watch,” Pouncey said. “That is normalcy for sure.”
Roethlisberger’s return will go a long way toward determining if the Steelers can overtake the Baltimore Ravens and win the AFC North Division something they haven’t been able to do since 2017. Other than a new right tackle — Chukwuma Okorafor or Zach Banner, at least for now — he will have nine returning starters to begin his comeback.
The only new starter on defense is nose tackle Tyson Alualu, but he will be in that role in a reduced capacity, maybe 25- 30% of the time. Inside linebacker Vince Williams returns to a starting role he held until last year.
“I like our roster and I like the makeup of the team,” team president Art Rooney II said.
The offense, though, will have a slightly different look from last year, beyond the return of their two- time Super Bowl- winning quarterback. New quarterbacks coach Matt Canada has helped coordinator Randy Fichtner infuse more motion, — pre- snap shifts and misdirection into the scheme, hoping to create some confusion in an opposing defense while freeing up space for their own players.
“It’s fun to kind of pick their brains in what they have done in the past and what they have seen and infused it into our offense that we have already had.” Roethlisberger said. “We will definitely see some different things this year.”
The Steelers, and the rest of the NFL, already have seen a lot of different things this year. And that will continue, for now, into the regular season. The Steelers are one of 27 teams who will not allow fans in the stadium for at least the first month of the season. They will play amid low- level, pumped- in crowd noise that will include sounds indigenous to a team’s home stadium.
“During the virus and the whole situation when the pandemic came, there was a lot of air in our thoughts between, ‘ Will we play? Will we be able to practice?’ ” outside linebacker Bud Dupree said. “Once we came to camp and have been around coach Tomlin and listening to him leading us in the right direction, preparing us for this type of environment that we will be playing in, the new environment of the world, now it’s starting to feel back real again. We’re full focus.”