Coach Mike Tomlin Media Availability (Aug. 18) | Pittsburgh Steelers

Coach Mike Tomlin Media Availability (Aug. 18) | Pittsburgh Steelers

man, really productive day. Um, spent the morning combing through uh Saturday night’s game tape. It’s just a lot to be learned. Um, not only from a skill development standpoint, but from a strategy perspective and, you know, from a cultural perspective. And so, I just wanted to devote the the morning totally to that and came out here and got some Carolina work this afternoon. We are working on a short week. Um, and so we just transitioned and quickly moved to Carolina. Um, a lot of good effort and energy out here today. Uh, it’s important that we don’t waste days in transition being back in this environment. Um, we got a lot of work to do and obviously the sand’s running through the hourglass in terms of team development, in terms of guys getting an opportunity to stay the case for themselves and for us develop the type of cohesion that’s necessary to get into the season. And so, we’re working and working with urgency. Um, don’t have any plans about who’s playing or how much they’re playing in in in Carolina. I’ll talk to you guys about that tomorrow. Um, we’ll take a look at this practice tape and and give a little bit more time from an injury perspective to to allow people to perk up certainly uh because this is the last opportunity. We want to give every healthy man an opportunity to take to state the case for themselves. And so we’ll leave the door a jar for those that are managing short-term injury things. Um, I’ll pause and open up for questions. Does Kun’s injury consider more short-term or long-term? More short term. Couple of those guys are Calvin and Ben Scronic. How do you feel about your depth at receiver right now and what you might need to add there? I’m comfortable with it. Uh certainly things get a little tight this time of year. Lines get short and usually um in one area, you know, positionally, um their strength and safety and numbers and so as you mentioned, that’s a group that’s running a little light, but that’s just a component of this time of year. Where do you see this team’s confidence right now? The cohesiveness feel I don’t know that I’m looking to measure that to be quite honest with you. you can develop false confidence in August, you know, um those things become real obviously in September. Mike Beanie said earlier today that you know obviously there are a couple guys in front of him that weren’t here last year, but what have you seen from him this game? What kind of role could he have with this team? You know, I don’t worry about the Joneses and neither should he. Um he should focus on improving and he has done that. uh the growth between year one and year two is reasonable to expect uh individuals to grow not only in terms of knowledge but uh skill relative to their positions and I like the trajectory of his of his progress in those areas. What do you want to see out of what do you want to see out of Caleb on Thursday? Caleb Johnson I just want to continue to see him get get more comfortable in this environment. I think the more comfortable he gets, um the less fuel he burns in anticipation, if you will, um the more his talents are going to show. I think he saw it from game one to game two is reasonable to expect that to continue. You challenged him a little bit last week for the game um on Saturday. Is that something you uh are kind of learning as well, how to manage these rookies and kind of what makes them tick? Certainly. Um, it’s a bunch of individual relationships within this big big organization, if you will. And, you know, that started for me way back in in draft prep, to be quite honest with you. It’s not only getting to know the players and their skill set, but just their relationship with the game, uh, how they best receive coaching, um, how they respond to challenges, etc. It’s a major component of the get to know for me. the change that has been made to the touch back on kickoff. Small sample in the preseason so far, but how does that change strategy for you? And do you think it’ll have the intended effect when we get to the season? I have no idea at this juncture because we all got different agendas this time of year. Uh we want to kick and cover and receive kicks. We want to get to know those guys that are battling for roster spots. And so I don’t think we’ve begun to scratch the surface from a strate strategic standpoint what that change might mean. You had B just kick off and not do the other stuff. What went in there that rule for Saturday? Christian got hurt. But I mean you had Saul’s though. I mean Christian got hurt. Oh, okay. I got anything else? Great. Thanks, guys. Stoach.

Coach Mike Tomlin spoke with the media following practice Monday, August 18

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