Trending
LATROBE, Pa. (AP) -- Some elements of NFL training camp are portable. Two-a-day practices, or whatever the approximation is these days. Extended film sessions. Team meetings. Drill after drill after drill after drill in the midsummer heat, all designed to whittle a roster from 90 to 53.
All can be replicated anywhere.
The value the Pittsburgh Steelers place in Saint Vincent College cannot.
Cramped quarters. Packed stands that erupt when the Steelers make the walk down the hill to Chuck Noll Field. Languid nights in the dormitories with the outside world stripped away, where the foundational chemistry required for a team to endure the rigors of an 18-week regular season is laid.
It would have been easy for Pittsburgh to abandon its yearly trip to Saint Vincent's bucolic campus an hour east of the city. The Steelers navigated the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as anyone, reaching the playoffs each of the past two years after spending training camp working out at Heinz (now Acrisure) Field.
Yet when the COVID-19 protocols eased, the team didn't hesitate in returning to the place that's served as their summer home since 1966.
Yes, it's isolating in its own way. Yes, it's not particularly comfortable. Yes, it's kind of crowded. That's kind of the point.
"It's the opportunity to capture the intangible, that which we cannot measure," coach Mike Tomlin said Tuesday as he began his 16th training camp with the team. "Although you can't measure it. You acknowledge it exists. And you acknowledge it exists by working at it. And that's what I'm challenging the team to do. To give of themselves, their time, their space, their knowledge, their experience while we're here, formally and informally."
Less than two dozen of the players who made their way down the steps from the team parking lot to Rooney Hall to check in were around three years ago. The majority have only heard stories about what to expect.