LATROBE, Pa. -- Christian Kuntz popped a mini-wheelie on his massive massage chair, pushed it down a slim, scaling sidewalk toward one of the Saint Vincent College dorms the Steelers will be occupying over the next month, spanning pretty much the same distance of a football he'd be long-snapping on any other day.
One thing: I'd been sitting by that door for a while, seeking shade from the searing sun and 90-degree temps, and I could attest that this door ... had no handle. Which was a problem.
"Oh, yeah," Kuntz would say with a sigh upon arrival. "That is a problem."
Mutual Duquesne-educated minds at work, right?
Soon enough, Pressley Harvin III, the regular recipient of Kuntz's snaps, showed up. Never a surprise. These two are inseparable. And that applied to this cause, as well.
"Gotta have this thing," Harvin explained to me. "Too much goodness up there."
He pointed to the front of the machine, where the legs go, and spoke a single syllable: "Calves." To which Kuntz would playfully echo, "Calves."
And so, having come to grips that this door wasn't about to open itself, the two proceeded to roll the 300-pound contraption back up that sidewalk and back down another, where they'd have to hoist it down a couple flights of cement steps to a door that actually had a handle. And opened. And closed. And once it did the latter, the summation of all of the day's drama went right along with it.
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No drama. No egos. No look-at-me displays anywhere. And as I'd anticipated, there were no choppers, no fire trucks, no construction vehicles, scarcely even a snazzy sports car.
Heck, Broderick Jones, the first-round pick, put down a $50 bill on an Uber ride from his Downtown hotel, and sounded bona fide surprised that the driver recognized him, recalling, “He knew who I was, which was shocking to me because he was a little bit older.”
Welcome to Pittsburgh, kid. This time for real.
The same approach applied to the attire: Pat Freiermuth was sporting an IC Light T-shirt, Nate Herbig one that declared, 'HAPPY TO BE HERE,' and Kenny Pickett the familiar blue and gold of his beloved alma mater. Not a solitary Vince Williams-style pro wrestler look in sight.
What'd it mean?
Well, nothing, of course. In isolation, intangibles are always hollow.
But man, I'd sure like to think it had at least a little to do with this striking assessment from Mike Tomlin later in the day: “I like the feel in the air. There’s excitement. Guys are excited to be here, to be back, and to be around each other to begin this process. And you feel it.”
Yeah. What he said. Only he'd say it better every time because he'd be able to back it up. Including with tangibles: No players on the Physically Unable to Perform list for the first time I can recall upon the opening of camp. No holdouts, with Joey Porter Jr. freshly signed. No hold-ins, with Alex Highsmith just wrapped up for another five years. No one lagging or dragging in conditioning, with Tomlin assessing that “everyone showed up adequately conditioned and then some.”
No ... nothing. Other than the football, which'll begin in earnest Thursday at 1:55 p.m. with an open-to-the-public practice here on Chuck Noll Field.
Imagine.
It'll be about Pickett raising the bar for himself and for the offense, while at the same time keeping a clear focus on what matters most in that context, as his response here to my question on that count illustrated:
"I mean, just go out there and win," he'd come back. "You can get into expectations of numbers and stuff like that. I just want to go out there and win. So, whatever that takes, whatever those numbers look like, that's all I'm focused on."
Terrific. That's as it should be. If there are stars on this offense, they've yet to take off. And the best chance for any of them to do that, including Pickett himself, is to win and let the credit spread itself: Run enough to keep the defense fresh. Pass enough to create space for the run. Throw deep enough to open up underneath.
“We need balance," Pickett would elaborate. "I think that's the key to success in this league. You can't be one-dimensional. I'm excited to see what that looks like and push the ball down the field and hand it off to Najee and see what he can do. I know he's been working really hard, so I think we've got a really good, balanced team this year. That's what I want to see.”
From Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren both. And the wide receivers, still searching for a true No. 1. And the tight ends, now fortified by a bookend blocker to complement Freiermuth in Darnell Washington.
And, as ever in continuing the dominant running theme of this decade to date, on the offensive line.
My goodness, if there should be any semblance of controversy in this camp, one might think it'd be with the big boys. First, Isaac Seumalo was signed to take Kevin Dotson's place at left guard. Then, Jones was taken 14th overall to -- theoretically, anyway -- do likewise to Dan Moore Jr. And yet, while I sensed some edginess within this group upon assembling for OTAs and minicamp, all of that sure seems to have dissipated.
I asked Dotson if he's viewing this camp as a battle:
"That's how I'm gonna go into it," he'd reply. "I mean, that's the only thing that's gonna get me any type of ... passion for it."
Any other year, I'd bet, that'd get blown up. Not this one. Dotson's a heart-on-his-sleeve type. Doesn't hold anything back. And what's more, it's the healthiest mindset he can have. If he comes onto this campus conceding that he can't out-perform Seumalo, he's helping no one. Including himself as it relates to his own NFL future, here or elsewhere.
When the formal session broke up, I asked Dotson to clarify that he aims to fight.
"Damned right."
Awesome.
As for left tackle, Tomlin stopped well shy of declaring Moore the first-teamer entering the first practice, but this was his answer when asked if that can be presumed: “I haven’t thought about it, but I would assume so, yes.”
No real headline there, either. And no surprise at all. I've been telling anyone who'd listen for months now that this management team's anything but eager to discard Moore. They believe in him. They believe in his improvement. And yeah, they believe he can find a way to stop drawing so many flags.
How will that play out?
Hey, let the two dogs go at one bone for a few weeks and see. Or, better yet, let the two dogs actually help each other -- as Jones acknowledged on this day that Moore's been doing with him all summer -- and have the sharpest of iron operating from both sides.
Of the competition, all Jones would say is that he needs to “get in, learn as much as possible and be the best I can be. It comes down to performing and being the best version of you. That’s what competition is to me. I really believe in that.”
Can't wait. It'll be one of the coolest components to camp, maybe similar to the monster duel between Chuks Okorafor and Zach Banner, each taking turns against T.J. Watt, back in 2020. Couldn't take my eyes off a single snap.
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
The fields at Saint Vincent College, seen from a nearby hillside, Wednesday afternoon.
The defensive scenarios might appear to be simpler, but they really aren't.
Up front, per what I'm told, the Steelers would love to see second-rounder Keeanu Benton round out the line, between Cam Heyward and Larry Ogunjobi. He'd offer a penetrating dynamism that's been lacking in that spot since Javon Hargrave's departure, while also helping to stop the run. And within that, he'd take a huge burden off the two thirty-somethings flanking him.
Really, this can't be overstated.
"Oh, I know," Benton told me here. "And I know about Javon and what he meant to everyone here, what he's become. I'm not going to compare myself to anyone else or try to be anyone else, but I know what's expected. And I expect it of myself."
If he ascends here -- no hype -- it should be the story of camp. While in the same breath, I'm also comfortable saying that if he can't beat out the pedestrian likes of Montravius Adams, it just might be the disappointment of camp. Bit of a pivotal swing.
The linebackers are largely set, outside and, to a degree, inside -- we'll see what Omar Khan might have to say regarding the latter over the next few weeks -- but the secondary ... wow, where to even start?
Maybe this: Minkah Fitzpatrick's role is known. Damontae Kazee's, too.
From there, there are two veterans and two rookies who could be in or out of the lineup, inside or outside on the field: Patrick Peterson and Levi Wallace have the experience, and Joey Porter Jr. and Corey Trice Jr. have the ceilings. Peterson also could slide into the slot, as he'd been doing through much of OTAs and minicamp, but his total game snaps there for the Vikings last season will forever be stuck at zero, and that's got to be weighed.
Add into all that how often Tomlin and Teryl Austin will opt to utilize the three-safety set to have Keanu Neal creep closer to the line as a de facto linebacker -- Neal told me at minicamp to expect plenty of that -- and now even the default inside linebackers, Cole Holcomb and Elandon Roberts for now -- slip into uncertainty.
Small wonder that, when this came up with Fitzpatrick here, he stressed his own communication responsibilities.
"I think it's just saying what I see, being honest with everybody around me. And being honest with myself," he'd say of this camp. "We all have to make sure we're on the same page. I think that'll be the biggest thing, making sure there are no gray areas, that everybody's seeing the game the same way."
On this side of the ball, too, there are no apparent distractions.
As Highsmith would word it days after signing a five-year, $70 million extension and, comically, minutes after yanking a TV out of his trunk that looked to be some Best Buy bargain, "I love this defense. I love being part of it. I love what we have here, the way we work together, the way we interact, everything."
Still no zingers for the day's headline, huh?
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Let's leave that to Watt, then. Because I heard nothing here that resonated anywhere near what he'd put forth on the subject of the state of the franchise in this summer of 2023 regarding the perennially offered goal of winning the Super Bowl.
“You can’t win a Super Bowl if you don’t start with a playoff game," he'd say. "We’re always trying to take it one game at a time, but certainly we know the end goal is to win a Super Bowl. And to do that, you have to start with winning playoff games.”
Mm-hm. Hasn't been one of those since Chris Boswell's six field goals six years ago in Kansas City.
“It’s been too long," Watt would add. "I haven’t done it yet here. That’s important to me.”
Seems important to everyone. Bang that damned door down already.
