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A quick summary of my thoughts on Monday's training camp session

I've never been to training camp, despite living in Pittsburgh until I was 23. But today, it worked out that I had to drive from DC to Cleveland for work. So it would have been just downright dumb to not stop by Latrobe and take it in. My thoughts on today:

The experience is very cool. Despite the absolutely horrible weather, it was fun. I went armed with binoculars, which I definitely recommend. The players move around between several fields, so you can't count on a great view the whole time. Below are a few thoughts on what I saw. Keep in mind, I am far from a professional at any of this. And of course, I only saw a handful of plays, moving from spot to spot.

Joey Porter is a tough guy to get a good picture of. He moves constantly. During backs on backers, I think he almost jumped in to take a rep on a couple of occasions. And I wouldn’t have bet against him. He yells, he pushes, he jumps around. We should have a Peazy-cam for the rest of camp.

Stephon Tuitt was a man among boys against the second team O-Line. Looked pretty good against the 1’s too. Two plays that would have been sacks and I think he batted a pass, but it was at the far end, so I’m not sure. Tomlin seems to have developed a personal interest in seeing what Tuitt can do. You could hear him yelling "C'mon nine-one" across the field several times.

Daniel McCullers is just plain huge. I watched him closely for four plays. He pushed through a double team to get near the QB on one play. Plowed through DeCastro in another and made the tackle.

• AB looked small, but then I saw Dri Archer. Wow. He is tiny. Like Camillo Villegas small. He looks fast, but with the wet field, I’m not sure we saw all he has today. But he was willing to stick his nose in when running between the tackles.

• Zumwalt plays hard. It's like he wants to make the team or something. He also lines up in a lot of different spots.

Ike Taylor cannot catch. I know this is not exactly news. But he dropped two in basic drills. At least one hit him directly in the hands.

Troy Polamalu can catch, and I think that Shaquille Richardson can too. Looked like Shaquille had a nice pick on a deflected ball, but he may have trapped it (I couldn’t quite see and there wasn’t instant replay on a jumbo-tron). UPDATE- the Richardson play was a good interception. I saw it mentioned on Steelers.com. It was a great catch. He was covering an out route and the ball got deflected, basically down the line of scrimmage. So he had position in front of the receiver and had to come back towards the line and dive for the fluttering ball. Good reaction and hands.

Brice McCain had a couple of good reps in coverage. Again, I didn’t see them all, so he may very well have been smoked on others. But the ones I saw looked good. Would be nice if he worked out.

•McClendon was running with the 2's. Might be because they want to see what Cam Thomas can do.

Wesley Johnson looked a little lost in the couple of reps I saw. He was lined up at guard in those reps.

Lance Moore is solid. I’m not talking route running and catching. I mean that he is built like a truck.

• I have no idea who the assistant coach talking to the special teams in the visor was. But he was built like a bigger truck. Any intel on who that was? UPDATE - that is Mike Sellers, who scored a coaching internship.

Shamarko Thomas is shorter than Missy Matthews. By a lot.

•I only saw a couple of plays of DHB, but I was not at all impressed. Justin Brown didn't give me any reason to be excited on the two drills of his that I watched either. Landry Jones just gave up on one throw to him because he was blanketed and didn't bother throwing it.

•Speaking of that, Landry may have his hands full against Brendon Kay. I thought he threw a better ball and looked more mobile in drills.

•Matt Speath can block one on one and he can hit the sled. He owned the backs on backers reps I saw. He is noticeably bigger than all the other TE's

• Blanchflower did not look good at all. I hope he gets better, and I would bet he will.

• Moye had a couple of nice plays. For a team that has no tall receivers, we seem to have three big ones.

• AB looked a little miffed when the d-back came up from behind and knocked the ball away after he started coasting to a TD.

Ryan Shazier is all sorts of fast. I know we knew that, but wow. Watching him in drills, he had another gear. Now understand that I have certainly watched my share of football, but I don't typically stand around watching LB drills. I am analytical enough to realize that I have no ability to watch one guy run a drill and know if it is impressive or not unless I have something to compare it to directly. In this case, I was comparing him to Timmons, Jones, and Worilds. He also made Blount look like a pylon twice in backs on backers.

• Speaking of Blount, he is a hoss. Bell wasn't out there, but he dwarfed the other RB's.

• Timmons rules. Every time I watched him, he beat his block and/or made a play. He looks bigger than I expected.

• Jarvis looked better, but did get owned on one play by a backup tight end, Paulsen I think.

• Worilds made a really great interception of a pass down field on the sideline covering Dri Archer. I was shocked by how athletic he looked on that play. Although he also got beat 2/3 in backs on backers (by Spaeth).

• Spence was back. That made me smile. But he was a little inconsistent. Backs on backers was mixed. He also got turned around pretty badly in coverage on one play I watched (ball didn’t come to his guy luckily). But he was not at all timid. He hasn't played in live action in quite a while, so it's to be expected.

• It's a good thing that Beachum does not have to block Cam Heyward for real, because he couldn't today at all. Someone would get hurt, and it wouldn't be Cam.

• Speaking of Cams, Cam Thomas is very large. Looked pretty good on the two plays I watched him. Soaked up double teams against the 1's.

• Defense ran quite a bit of nickle, with two DE's, four LB's, two CB's, two Safeties, and Robert Golden playing the nickle. I love the idea of keeping as many of those LB's on the field as much as possible.

• It's pretty clear that Shamarko is Troy's backup and Allen is Mitchell's. Troy looks fit.

• Ben looks huge, but skinny. He is in great shape.

• Jerry Olsavsky is having the time of his life. He really enjoys coaching (or was at least in a really good mood). I always liked him as a player. Good to see him enjoying himself.

Feel free to tell me all the things I missed or got wrong.

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