The first team offense beat the first team defense in situational drills today (Photo Credit: vader29)
One piece of good news to start things off on the injury front. Nose tackle Alaemda Ta’amu (hamstring) has been activated from the active/PUP list.
Yes, Kevin Colbert just told me Ta’amu activated off PUP.
— James C Wexell (@jimwexell) August 5, 2013
– Matt Spaeth and Nick Williams, both coming off knee injuries, returned to practice.
Matt Spaeth & Nick Williams both participating today. #Steelers
David Todd (@DavidMTodd) August 5, 2013
Tomlin said he expects participation to increase even more on Wednesday.
– After a string of physical practices, the Steelers ditched the pads today and are just practicing in shorts. A good way to ease into an off day tomorrow.
No hitting for steelers today. Majority of team in shorts.
Mark Kaboly (@MarkKaboly_Trib) August 5, 2013
– Most competitive part of practice was the two minute drill. The situation today? Ball on the opposing 38 yard line with 45 seconds left and one timeout and needing a touchdown.
Per Mike Prisuta, the first team offense scored with one second left, a nine yard wheel route to Isaac Redman over Larry Foote in the corner of the end zone.
Bruce Gradkowski and the second team offense was stopped by the second team defense.
The offense won the series when the John Parker Wilson led third team scored in just three plays, including one spike, capped off with a 28 yard touchdown pass to Markus Wheaton.
– Damon Cromartie-Smith got first team strong safety reps with Troy Polamalu again missing practice.
– Curtis Brown suffered an ankle injury and was forced to be carted off. Tomlin said he will be evaluated.
Curtis Brown being taken off field on cart Mark Kaboly (@MarkKaboly_Trib)
It was a lighter day with the team finishing practice with wind sprints.
Finished practice with some sprints. #SteelersTrainingCamp pic.twitter.com/8Gi9nv6lzf
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) August 5, 2013
The Steelers hosted Sergeant Doug Vitale to camp today, a few days after Ben Roethlisberger brought Army veteran Noah Galloway to speak with the team.
Really an honor to have Sgt. Doug Vitale at @steelers practice today. pic.twitter.com/99DV5nbbYB
— Burt Lauten (@SteelersPRBurt) August 5, 2013
Said Tomlin after practice: “It’s the right thing to do. They’re the real heroes. We just want to honor them.”
QUOTES TO NOTE
Keith Butler
If Jason Worilds is the frontrunner for the starting job: “It’s Jason’s job right now. ”
If Jarvis Jones can take the job: “Maybe. It’s a competition. It’s a competition between all of them. It’s a competition for Woodley too. For all of them. For Larry Foote it’s a competition. Maybe, maybe Lawrence Timmons doesn’t have competition. But the rest of them do. Make it competitive, make sure everyone earns their position. We’re hungry a little bit. Woodley really showed it [Saturday]. I told him, that’s probably the old Woodley I’m used to seeing. Hopefully, we’ll be competitive. ”
If camp has been more feisty this year than past camps: “It is because we’re hitting. We have one period that does live and we’ve never done that before. But we feel like we need to because of our youth and we gotta find out about our running backs. We gotta find out about who is going to play at linebacker, who is going to play in the secondary. We need to find out about our backup safeties. There’s a lot of questions we got to find out. We can’t wait until the preseason to do it. We have to formulate an idea of what we want to do before then. ”
On whether or not he’s in favor of the extra hitting: “I’m in favor of this for a young football team. I’m in favor of this because we have to answer some questions. It’s not like we can afford not to do it. I think Mike [Tomlin] is right in saying we gotta find out what we got. ”
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NOTE: The team has an off day tomorrow. The TC Roundup will return Wednesday.
