Dispatch from St. Vincent's: Steelers Training Camp Report

Interesting day, and painful. Not on the field, but I stupidly forgot sunscreen, and now have a very nice burn on the back of my neck. Quick notes:

- Nate Washington looked awesome. Really awesome. He caught everything thrown his way and made a few spectacular grabs, including an acrobatic TD catch in the back of the end zone on a pass from Ben during the two-minute drill. His mohawk looks pretty good too.

- Limas Sweed impressed as well, catching one deep pass from Charlie Batch after beating two defensive backs (I believe they were Mason and Roy Lewis, but don't quote me, I wasn't taking notes) and another on a fade for a TD during Charlie's two-minute.

- Dallas Baker, Willie Reid, and Micah Rucker all seemed very aware that they are on the bubble, as they were playing hard. All three made some great catches, but Baker in particular dropped a pretty easy pass over the middle. Reid was robbed on a fly route when the CB covering him (I couldn't catch his number) interfered, but he also didn't help himself any by pulling up early on another deep Batch pass.

- Hines, veteran of many a training camp, seemed to play when he felt like it. He sat on a Gatorade cooler during some early drills, but later on was making some rolling catches on low balls. He bungled a beautiful pass from Ben on a post, and promptly dropped and banged out ten push-ups, to the crowd's delight. He's the only person on the field who could get cheers after missing a pass.

- Ben was okay. He underthrow Santonio once (who looked solid as well, working well in traffic) and another gave Deshea Townsend an easy interception on a pass that appeared to be intended for one of the FAs whose names I can't remember. Other than that he looked sharp and comfortable, and very accurate, though he wasn't throwing much deep.

- I have to single out Gerran Walker for making some pretty poor cuts. He's probably one of the first to go, given how on the rest of the receivers were.

- Santonio, Willie Reid, and Jeremy Bloom fielded punts (Sepulveda was not punting today, and Batch was holding for Skippy Reed, which I thought was odd). All three handled every punt cleanly, but on the few return drills they ran, Bloom and Holmes outperformed Reid.

- Dennis Dixon seemed okay, and moved pretty well for a guy with what I thought was a bad injury. He and Mike Potts were the least accurate, not surprisingly, and Potts was the only QB to have to throw a pass away during passing drills. I also caught Dixon using a sidearm delivery once or twice, which is a good way to get the ball swatted down. Potts' footwork looked clean from what I saw, but neither he nor Dixon had enough true dropbacks to get a good handle on that.

- Unfortunately, the pass-blocking drills were on a far field. I couldn't see much of what was going on, but unsurprisingly, the defense appeared to be getting the better of the offense. This was not backs-on-backers by the way, as Parker, Mendenhall, Russell and Davis were all participating in the two-minutes at the time.

- Mendenhall looked as good as you can in a limited-contact rushing drill, running low with good lateral quickness. Parker looked good as well - though he was getting the whistle blown on him a bit earlier than Menthol, on average, he had the longest gain of the afternoon, slipping between the LT and LG and darting to his left for a good fifteen or twenty yards before being run out of bounds by Ty Carter.

- As a side note, Parker was hitting the sled a lot harder than I ever remember him hitting a hole in a game. He and Mendenhall again paced the backs in this easily, especially on second effort, where Carey Davis in particular flagged a bit.

- Where was Mewelde Moore? I saw him hit the sled and catch a few passes, but only in a RBs-only drill. I came to camp looking for him specifically, and I could never find him.

- Skippy looked fine on field goals, but he only got to the 45 before the horn sounded. During warmups he took a few jogging steps and hit what appeared to be a very large, very unamused bear of an assistant coach. He hasn't changed much, in other words.

-During one of these field goal attempts, Batch took the snap and then rolled to his right, hitting Matt Spaeth for a completion.

- Troy appeared to be very interested in the rest of the DBs play, spending most of the day crouching and watching the defensive backfield calmly. Chris K, on the other hand, appeared to be very upset not to be on the field. Or maybe he always looks like that. I didn't see Big Snack, believe it or not. not to say that he wasn't on the field, but I never got a glimpse that I was certain was him (a lot of these big guys look similar from a distance - my mother somehow confused Greg Warren with Ben Roethlisberger momentarily).

If I think of anything else, I'll edit or post in the comments.