What We've Learned at Training Camp | Steelers Morning Rush

Welcome to Steelers Morning Rush, our new daily short-form podcast with Alan Saunders, giving a longer perspective on a single news topic surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers or the National Football League.Today, it's what we've learned in the first six practices over the first week of the first Steelers training camp of the Mike McCarthy era, plus what we've yet to learn thus far.Alan breaks it down:#steelers #herewego #nflCONNECT WITH STEELERS NOW:Steelers Now: https://steelersnow.comSN on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pghsteelersnowSN on FB: https://facebook.com/steelersnowSN on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/pghsteelersnow/

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Video Transcript

Hey, folks.

Good morning and welcome to another episode of Steelers Morning Rush.

I'm Alan Saunders.

It is Wednesday, August 5th.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are practicing today, but it is closed to the public and the media.

Believe it's just a walkthrough and a review of the last two days of padded practices, and they are getting set for, another three-day stretch of those, Thursday, Friday, into Saturday night for the night practice at Latrobe Memorial Stadium.

Excited about that one.

Excited about the rest of this week as we continue to learn more and more about the 2026 Pittsburgh Steelers under Mike McCarthy.

With the off day here one week into Steelers training camp, six practices down, I wanna take a time to pause and talk about what we've learned in the first six practices, and what I'm still looking forward to learning going forward, because you certainly can't do it all in a few days of training camp, and there's still a lot left to go.

I'm gonna write a, a companion article to this over at steelersnow.com a little bit later today, but I'll give you guys here the sneak preview, at least in the what we've learned portion.

I, I think, you know, the first and foremost thing I wanna talk about is just how different a Mike McCarthy training camp is going to be, how it's going to be different.

And I think we knew it was going to be different.

And, and I had a pretty good idea that it was going to be less physical.

You know, I had talked to people in Dallas.

I had, I had sort of, you know, thought about things the way Mike McCarthy thinks about things and, and sort of figured out it's probably gonna be less physical, probably not gonna be any tackling.

I'm still-- I've still been taken aback b- though at, at sort of how unphysical, the practices were, especially without pads on.

And even in the first day of pads it wasn't particularly physical.

Yesterday, a little bit more so.

And just how different it is going to be.

And, you know, talking to Rico Dowdle and Brock Hoffman, sure seems like this is the way it's going to be.

This was the way it s- in Dallas.

There's no, like, you know, big, big thing coming.

Like, this is pretty much what we're going to expect the rest of the way.

And so a very, non-contact version of Pittsburgh Steelers training camp on tap f- under Mike McCarthy, and that's certainly going to be an interesting transition.

It has been, and it will continue to be.

But I definitely feel like we learned exactly what we're looking for here now.

Like, I don't think Thursday's practice is going to be some surprise.

I think we've now kind of figured out what it's going to be about.

The t- Focus on the two-minute drill sort of being the highlight of the day instead of that seven shots, which was a, a, a, you know, w- seven plays from the two yard line.

It, it, it fits.

It, it's comparable.

I like it.

And, probably, you know, just in general, and let's, let's go to the second thing here, this passing offense is going to be so much better.

It is already so much better, and it's probably going to continue to get better as the receivers and Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy all get a little bit more, and Brian Angelico, all get a little bit more comfortable with one another.

But man, this passing offense is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was a year ago.

You can see the concepts being more advanced.

I think the receivers have a better grasp of what they're being asked to do.

I think it fits what Aaron Rodgers wants to do much better.

He feels much less in con- f- I'm not, I don't wanna speak for him, but from what I can see, it looks a lot like Aaron Rodgers in a lot less conflict with what the offense is asking him to do.

It seems to come naturally to him.

I don't see him disagreeing with Mike McCarthy or Brian Angelico or what's happening in his helmet.

He's not even making as many checks at the line of scrimmage.

I mean, I, it just seems like Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers are on the same page.

And what Mike McCarthy wants to do is what Aaron Rodgers wants to do, and it's what Aaron Rodgers is good at, and the Steelers are capable of doing it, and the receivers are bought in.

And I, I think this passing offense, I, I'm gonna say, based on what I've seen so far, I think there's a good chance the Steelers have the biggest increase in passing offense from 2025 to 2026.

And I think Aaron Rodgers is gonna be a lot better.

He looks better.

He's not perfect.

He's not making every throw.

And certainly, there is an aspect of this, and, and we'll get to this later, but the, there's no pressure.

I get that.

But it just looks better.

Everything looks better about this passing offense.

And we'll see about the other areas, but that, a- that area I think unquestionably should be better.

The second thing I want to talk about is the secondary.

Boy, is it good, man.

I mean, we talked in OTAs about how good Dalen Everett was and, and talking about how if he's the number six corner, man, that's significant.

And he's been pretty good.

I mean, maybe not quite as good as he was in OTAs, but he's been pretty good.

And Brandon Echols and Asante Samuel have opened the gap between corners four and five and corner six, because they've been two of the best players on the field.

And that's without even getting Porter and Ramsey involved.

This is the best Steelers corner room in a very long time.

I mean, I have said that in my lifetime it probably hasn't gotten better than Hayden, Nelson, Hilton, Sutton one through four.

I don't know, man.

I think they could be better than that.

Some concern about Jamel Dean.

I don't think he's been outstanding so far, and obviously we haven't seen Porter and Ramsey on the field.

But man, the depth is outstanding at cornerback and, and that, those guys can play.

And, and they have different types of body styles and, and all kinds.

Really a lot to like from that group, and I think a significant improvement.

Another area that I don't think a lot of people are talking about, and really they've only come through on, on, for me in the last two nights, but or last two days, but I think the linebackers are gonna play better with Patrick Graham.

I, I talked to some of the guys.

The linebackers love the changes to Patrick Graham's defense.

I don't think it's changed much for the defensive line.

And the corners, you know, they sort of always had all these things in the menu.

It's just, you know, he's ordering a BLT instead of the hamburger, you know?

It, but, but they always had to know how to do all those things because, you know, every defense calls every coverage.

At some point.

So maybe there's more focus on different areas, but it's not like the DBs are learning new things.

Like, they're, they're, they're all the same.

For me, the linebacker position is the position in this defense that is going to change the most from TA and Mike Tomlin to, to Patrick Graham, and these guys are loving it, and they're playing fast.

I've seen much better performances out of Patrick Queen, out of Peyton Wilson, even Cole Holcomb.

Carson Bruner looks good.

This linebacker position is going to look different this year.

I think they're flowing to the run more aggressively and more naturally, and I have not seen what I saw so many times in the past, which was one of those guys flailing in coverage because they were given an unrealistic assignment.

Like, I have not seen that one time.

And so I think that's the real That, that part of it is the part of it that really stands out to me, where the linebacker's getting realistic coverage assignments, and they're still getting to the ball carrier against the run.

That's a real big difference.

It's something we haven't seen recently.

The, the, the f- the next thing I think I've learned is the young quarterbacks have a long way to go, and I think, look, you're not really gonna decide anything about the quarterback position until we get to the preseason.

But man, the gap between Aaron Rodgers, and Mason Rudolph, and the other two is significant.

It is a gulf, and for different reasons.

You know, I think Howard is pretty obviously somewhat limited in terms of his arm, and he's made some big mistakes early on in training camp.

He had a really nice day on Tuesday, probably his best day, but he You know, you can't afford to be the guy with a limited upside and also make mistakes.

Aller, on the other hand, has an unlimited upside, and he has, at times, shown that while also being Inconsistent is the wrong word.

He's been consistently more bad than good even though the good has been very good.

He's got a lot of work to do, too.

If you have to ask me right now, I think Mason Rudolph is the backup quarterback, and I don't think it's close, and that is something I feel like we've learned since the start of training camp.

Very quickly, let's talk about the things I've yet to learn, and let's stay on that same topic.

How these quarterbacks are going to handle pressure, I think that's a real question mark that probably we will not get answered until the preseason.

Is this team going to be good at running the football?

You could count on Arthur Smith's scheme to be good at that.

You knew his bonafides.

This scheme does not necessarily have that.

There have been times in Mike McCarthy's history where he has been good at running the ball, and there are times where he hasn't been.

You got a new look offensive line, and I've liked what I've seen from the offensive line so far, but it's mostly been pass protection, and I understand that is reasonably the focus with a 42-year-old quarterback, but they have to be able to run the ball, too.

Will they be able to consistently run the football?

Will they be able to run the football when the other team knows they're gonna run the football?

Will they be good at short yardage and goal line?

They're never gonna tackle, so we're not even gonna find out that about until the preseason or later.

And so I think that's still very much a question mark and up in the air.

Will the Steelers' changes to the outside linebacker position work and stick?

Certainly they're gonna try, moving T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith back and forth, playing with three outside linebackers on the field, moving Nick Herbig around the formation and giving him different responsibilities.

I feel good about that.

I, I, I feel certain about that.

Will it work?

I think it's still very much up in the air.

I have not seen T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith look up to their usual standard playing on the other side.

I haven't seen Nick Herbig blitzing up the middle with a lot of success or him fooling the offense by where he's lined up.

You know, I, I haven't seen enough of Patrick Graham's bag to know, is this going to be something that is worth doing?

Are, are they better off doing that, or is it just moving some pieces around without any real consequence?

That's definitely something still left to be decided.

And I think the big picture one is one we won't even get You know, we won't even really know the answer to until we get a couple years down the road, is, is this massive shift in the way the Steelers comport themselves, the, the whole focus of the organization changing from winning with defense first to winning with passing offense first, will that hurt the defense in the long run?

I don't expect it to hurt the defense in 2026.

In fact, I think the defense could be better in 2026 because I think Patrick Graham is a better X's and O's defensive play caller than Terry Austin was.

But long term, I can see the potential for this way of doing things to not be beneficial to the idea of developing dominant defense.

And so we'll see.

Probably won't see by the end of this year.

May not even see by the end of next year.

But that will play itself out over time.

Can the Steelers keep Patrick Graham if he continues to do well, or will he get poached for a head coaching position?

And then will defensive coordinator under Mike McCarthy be the kind that become the kind of weakness that offensive coordinator became under Mike Tomlin?

We certainly could see that, but I don't think we're gonna know that for quite some time.

That's what we learned.

That's what I still am hoping to learn.

Let me know what you guys have learned and what, what you wanna learn.

Lots of time for questions today on Afternoon Drive, so get them in.

Me and Smitty, 5:00, but no practice today to talk about, so lots of time for questions.

And then, you know, back to the normal grind on Thursday.

Night Shift tonight as well here on the YouTube channel, Job and Brenny on that one.

Until next time, thanks so much for listening, thanks for watching, and enjoy.

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