Monday was a day off for the Pittsburgh Steelers at training camp. This gave the players a day of rest before they put on the pads for the first time at camp. There’s always a ton of excitement and anticipation surrounding the first time the players put on the pads and get to do some real hitting. The team has practiced four times this training camp but has had to hold up all that pent-up aggression in just helmets.
Here are three things to watch for at the Steelers first padded practice.
Scrums. Lots of scrums.
The offensive and defensive lines have gone at it for a week but have been forced to hold back. If we were making a prediction, we would look for offensive tackle Troy Fautanu to get up in the face of a Steelers defensive lineman, and it’s going to boil over.
Speed in pads
Everybody looks fast in shorts and helmets. Speed and explosion have been weaknesses for the Steelers, but there are lots of new guys on the roster this season. We want to see how much speed guys like Calvin Austin and Roman Wilson are on offense in full pads. Same for the Steelers new cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey and Darius Slay.
The heat
Head coach Mike Tomlin moved training camp practice to the afternoons to get players acclimated to the heat, so this will be the first time the team gets together in the scorching heat in full pads and we want to see how the players hold up.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Wire: 3 things to watch for at Steelers first padded training camp practice