Pittsburgh Steelers welcome officials to practice for second consecutive week

The Pittsburgh Steelers are a highly penalized football team and, although their overall penalties and related yardage dropped significantly last week, Mike Tomlin has brought officials to Steelers' practices in the hope this improvement continues.

The penalty issue came to a head after the Steelers' 27-24 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where the Steelers were penalized 13 times for 125 yards. It was shortly after the game when reports began swirling that the Steelers were bringing in officials to their practices.

Such a rare move at the NFL level seemed to have paid off as the Steelers were only penalized 7 times for 50 yards in their Week 5 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Seven penalties is still steep in terms of the number of penalties per game, and that's why Tomlin has decided to bring in officials for the second week in a row.

The Steelers sit atop the NFL with 51 total penalties through five weeks of action and are second only to the New England Patriots in terms of penalty yardage.

If bringing in officials will limit penalties with the Steelers, then please reserve a room for the zebras at the Hilton for the rest of the season.