LATROBE, Pa. -- Even with cloudy skies over Saint Vincent College keeping helmets cooler than the norm on this Thursday afternoon, the temps of the Steelers' actual heads a week into training camp seemed pretty much unaffected.
Vince Williams, visibly irritated for no visible reason, broke away from a linebacker drill to pace alone for a few seconds, then sprinted, full-bore, across the width of all three adjacent fields. As if he had suddenly summoned the urge to steal someone's lunch money at the far end.
Cam Heyward, visibly irritated for the duration of the nearly three hours of drills, watched Bud Dupree get clocked on a sweep block by a wide receiver, Justin Hunter, then watched Hunter savor that block with a smile a bit too broad. To which Heyward barked, "Try it on me!"
Dan McCullers, the only structure on campus more visible than the spires of the Basilica, ripped off the helmet of young Parker Collins, a center out of Appalachian State, not once but twice. And the second time, Big Dan took a couple extra swings at Collins' exposed noggin in an apparent attempt to pile-drive him into a permanent fixture at Chuck Noll Field's 25-yard line.
Picking up the pattern yet?
If not, here's something Mike Tomlin offered, wholly unsolicited, to the pack of microphones and cameras surrounding him afterward: "I thought the interior of the offense won the line of scrimmage today. We'll see how the interior of the defense responds tomorrow."
Yeah, that.
Oh, also this: The Pittsburgh Bleeping Steelers, the franchise of Joe Greene, Jack Lambert and the Steel Curtain, practiced a few third-down snaps with seven defensive backs.
As in, not a nickel package, not a dime package, but probably ... what, the 5,000-Icelandic-Krona package?
Whatever anyone wants to call it, currency-related or otherwise, it's a striking, maybe seminal moment under Tomlin and Keith Butler. Because that alignment, at least if I'm piecing this all together properly, basically means the following is all interconnected:
• Tomlin and Butler don't trust their inside linebackers.
Certainly nowhere near as much as they could ever let on publicly. Even Williams isn't spared after a seven-sack 2017. He was again rotated evenly through first-unit drills Wednesday with Jon Bostic and Tyler Matakevich, and neither of those two had any clear edge over the other. Show me a defense with three inside linebackers and zero frontrunners, and I'll show you a coaching staff with deep doubts.
• Hinting at four down linemen isn't an accident.
There are tons of moving parts there, not least of which is that Dupree would be the fourth man in a three-point stance, now on the right side, and he's an incomplete study across the board. Much remains to be settled. Still, it's yet another switch that doesn't involve an inside linebacker and, given the need to keep T.J. Watt on the field, as well as the now-perpetual extra defensive back up at the line, only one inside linebacker -- if any -- stays on.
• The secondary's stealing the show.
No one will believe this, and no one should believe it until Cleveland and beyond, but this group's looking terrific. Never mind having Joe Haden back after a season in which he was superlative in man coverage, or advanced models of Artie Burns and Sean Davis. Adding Morgan Burnett, a natural hybrid at safety with a primary skill of tackling, then watching Terrell Edmunds perform and behave like a vet, and Cam Sutton "make nothing but plays out here," as one veteran observer shared Wednesday, and Mike Hilton being shifted all over the secondary, even at deep safety because, as Tomlin explained tersely, "He's a good tackler" ... it's obvious that there's way more here than at inside linebacker.
Haden worded this beautifully in his one-on-one talk with our Dale Lolley after practice: “We want to see how many DBs we can get out there to cover. We have a lot of strong safeties that are able to be in the box and cover tight ends. That shows how much talent we’ve got in our room. They’re taking the linebackers off the field and putting all the DBs in there.”
Right. Imagine.
Not to make too much of this seven-DB thing. Bear in mind, it occurred in this practice only in simulated third-and-long situations. It's not as if Leonard Fournette could ever have a chance to lick his lips looking at it. It might not make it into a preseason game, much less a playoff.
But what I like already is that Tomlin and Butler haven't stood stubbornly by what hasn't worked in the playoffs. Nor did they and Kevin Colbert resign themselves to their fate upon losing Ryan Shazier. Their two biggest moves this offseason weren't to try to find another Shazier -- there aren't any -- but instead to sign Burnett and invest their top draft pick in Edmunds, both safeties, both capable of the simple wrap and tackle, both smart and swift enough to drop.
That's good stuff. It's not sticking with the status quo in some silly attempt to show the playoff losses were someone else's fault. It's accepting defeat and adjusting toward victory.
I like this, too: There's an electricity around these younger secondary guys.
How long has that not been the case around here?
More than any group on this afternoon, they were the most vocal, most supportive, and you'd better believe they were the most visible, making play after play on the football in a manner I hadn't witnessed at this camp since ... I can't remember. And the more of them participating on any play at any point, the more chatter that arose.
As Burns put it, "We have some versatile young guys and a lot of talent. We're ready to prove a point, and I think we have the guys to do it."
And Burnett the newcomer: "Starting even from OTAs, you could see the athleticism. It's carried over to the pads. Guys are flying around. It's a lot of fun."
Even Tomlin, who analyzes training camp performances in the same way that vampires toy with crosses, was compelled to acknowledge, "They made some plays. They made some plays."
Funny, they didn't seem irritated, either.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Steelers training camp, Latrobe, Pa, Aug. 2, 2018. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS