A learning experience
Offensive linemen adopt aggressive attitude and show signs of progress
Steelers training camp has moved back to the UPMC Rooney Complex on the South Side, where there are plenty of cut-up reels of great players that passed through the building. Want to learn about great receiver play? Watch Antonio Brown do his thing. Want to understand how to play center? Watch Maurkice Pouncey.
That’s what Kendrick Green did this summer as he prepared for his first training camp. And now, just as Pouncey did 11 years ago, Green is poised to start at center as a rookie.
“When I got here in the summer I was trying to learn the offense there was a bunch of Maurkice Pouncey tape up there,” said Green, who wears Pouncey’s No. 53. “I like the way he plays. He
plays hard. He tries to play physical and put his hands on guys. That’s something I’ve been trying to work on myself.”
“Putting hands on guys” is football lingo for being physical and Pouncey typified that, especially when he was in his prime.
“It does come with the job, but he wasn’t doing it just because it was his job,” Green explained. “He was definitely going out the way to be violent. That’s what you appreciate as an offensive lineman.”
Green hasn’t officially been told he’s a starter, but he has been working with the starters exclusively since the first week of camp. He will be one of four new starters on an offensive line that is changing in every way possible.
They’ve gone from being the oldest offensive line in the league to one of the youngest. The projected starting five also is expected to include Kevin Dotson, Chukwuma Okorafor, Trai Turner and Zach Banner. They have an average age of 25.
Okorafor was the only starter last season who was under 25. Now there are three.
Under new line coach Adrian Klemm the Steelers also are changing their mindset. The passive area blocking that had been utilized in recent years is gone, replaced by a physical approach that is intended to bring the Steelers out of their run-game doldrums.
The new mentality is as much about believing in the running game as it is bringing the physicality on the field.
“A good running game is important, period,” said right guard Trai Turner, who joined the Steelers in June after the release of veteran David DeCastro. “I think as an offensive line, we pride ourselves in being able to run the ball when everyone knows we’re running the ball and maybe running the ball when people think we’re not. We can’t be one-dimensional. We have to be able to throw the ball and run the ball and cover both bases.”
The running game has been the focal point of the offseason for the Steelers. The passing game under the direction of Ben Roethlisberger remains important, but the Steelers want to be more effective when Roethlisberger hands the ball off.
The offensive line gradually got away from this mindset in the past half-decade. It’s hard to say exactly when it happened, but becoming a pass-first team morphed into a mindset that deemphasized the running game.
And that mentality eventually had the Steelers go from one of the league’s better running teams to the worst. The Steelers finished 31st in the league in rushing in 2018 and 29th in 2019 before bottoming out last season, finishing last.
While the preseason rushing statistics are nothing to write home about, there are signs that what Klemm is preaching is catching on. Against the Lions on Saturday, Green was putting defensive linemen on their backs. RashaadCoward blocked a defender 30 yards down the field and Turner, in pass protection, knocked a defensive lineman to the ground.
“Trying to play hard and trying to finish guys,” said Green, the Steelers’ thirdround pick out of the University of Illinois. “That’s what coach preaches. That’s the culture we’re trying to build in the room.”
“I want to establish physicality in the line, be known as a physical front,” Turner added.
Dotson, who is entering his second season, had a reputation as a run-game bully coming out of Louisiana last year. Banner is the biggest Steelers lineman. At 6 feet 8 and 335 pounds he made his mark as a jumbo tackle who only saw the field when the Steelers ran the ball.
Green is the smallest at 6-2, 308, and he’s working hard to make his stature a non-factor. But there have been some bumps in the road.
In the second preseason game against the Eagles he was bull-rushed into the backfield, giving up a sack to T.Y. McGill.
“After that play I was really pissed,” Green said. “It was definitely something I’ve watched on film. It comes with getting reps and experience.”
Head coach Mike Tomlin has watched it, too. And while he refused to divulge the details of his conversation with Green after that play, suffice it to say he was not pleased.
“I’m glad he’s properly motivated by [it],” Tomlin said. “Our tape is our walking, talking, breathing resume. That’s all we have as professionals. It’s less about we say; it’s more about what we do. And the plays we leave on tape are important.”
The Steelers would like to see more pancake blocks out of Green and fewer when he’s being driven backward, but it’s a learning process.
As Turner said of Green: “There’s always progress in the process.”
For the Steelers, they’re hoping the progress continues to on a steady pace before the regular-season opener in Buffalo in 19 days.