2020 Steelers Season Recall: Training Camp Begins

Steel City Underground presents our 2020 Steelers Recall: a look back at Pittsburgh Steelers games and storylines from last season.

Training Camp for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2020 was unlike anything we’ve ever seen before: and perhaps unlike anything we’ll ever see again. The Coronavirus pandemic shutdown sports across the globe earlier in the year, but the NFL still rolled on strong with the draft and proceeded to be as business as usual, at least as much as they could.

For the Steelers, the biggest change to the way they did business was to abandon their usual late summer home at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

Instead, the 2020 edition of the Steelers preseason would be hosted where their games take place within Heinz Field. But it wasn’t only the change of scenery that was different, as players would be tested regularly for the virus, with Pittsburgh being one of the rare rosters where none of the participants opted out for the season.

NFL teams were also required to trim their rosters down from 90 players to 80, reducing 10 more opportunities for others before anyone set foot on the field. Without a proper offseason program, teams eased into arriving and began with more conditioning drills for several days until the league gave an “all clear” for more rigorous practices. As part of the precautions for both physical conditioning and avoiding contracting COVID-19, all preseason games were eliminated as well.

Another change was the absence of fans – almost a yearly right of Steelers Nation is to attend the daily practice sessions, which were open to the public at Saint Vincent. For the first time in 52 years, this tradition was broken as there were no observers.

That didn’t leave fans without a taste of the action.

While we couldn’t see specific drills or plays, there were small tidbits of the inner workings of camp shown via the Steelers website in daily update videos. Among those was Ben Roethlisberger‘s return from missing nearly a year with an elbow injury. Seeing the future Hall of Famer throw a ball around was a sigh of relief for fans, even if they couldn’t see it in person.

Mike Tomlin’s post-practice press conferences, which were always available online, became completely virtually through Zoom meeting software too with the local press occasionally forgetting to mute their microphones!

And at a time of staying safe, social justice initiatives also ripped through the general public and were spearheaded by the league. Each franchise was permitted to address social issues in their own way. The Steelers showcased their class as an organization as Mike Tomlin stood near the 50-yard line in solidarity with the entire team as he delivered a powerful, moving speech.

Tomlin’s speech punctuated an unusual offseason and would lead into an uncertain regular season as the Steelers would prepare to play their first game two weeks later.