Steelers linebackers training with the best
PITTSBURGH – If you want to be the best in whatever your chosen field is, it never hurts to learn from the best.
That was the idea behind some of the Steelers’ younger linebackers heading to Arizona during the offseason to work out with James Harrison.
If you want to learn more about Harrison’s ridiculous offseason workout regime, why not get it straight from the source?
“He introduced us to his trainer,” said linebacker Vince Williams, one of four players who traveled to Arizona to work out with Harrison for four weeks. “Ryan Clark, Jason Worilds worked out there too. We decided we’d go check it out.”
Williams, Jarvis Jones, Sean Spence and Ryan Shazier all worked out with Harrison at Performance Enhancement Professionals in North Scottsdale, Ariz., to see how Harrison trains in the offseason.
It made a lasting impression.
“They were hard. It was hot out there, too. I wasn’t used to that, especially coming from Pittsburgh,” Williams said earlier this week at the team’s OTAs.
But the hope is, the increased offseason training will help make the foursome better players.
It certainly hasn’t hurt Harrison, who walked out of retirement last season at 36 and a month into the regular season after Jones suffered a dislocated wrist. He recorded 45 tackles and 5.5 sacks in 11 games.
“I’ll be in a lot better shape to start the year instead of taking the first four weeks to get ready like last year,” Harrison said.
One of the reasons the Steelers re-signed Harrison in the offseason, despite the fact he turned 37 earlier this month, was what he showed on the field in 2014.
The other is what the 2008 NFL Defensive Player of the Year can show the team’s young linebackers off the field.
“It’s always important to have an older player like James around,” said Shazier, who has added five to 10 pounds of weight. “He knows the ropes. He’s been around. He won defensive MVP. He’s won two Super Bowls. He knows the ins and outs of the Steelers defense. He knows the ins and outs of being a great player and being a champion. If you listen to him, he’s not going to tell you anything bad – unless he doesn’t want you to know.”
For Harrison, it’s just the natural progression.
One of just four remaining players on the Steelers’ roster who owns Super Bowl rings from the team’s championships in 2005 and 2008, he knows his remaining time on the playing field is running out. And he knows if he wants a third ring at the end of the 2015 season, it will count on the development of the young linebackers, especially Jones and Shazier, the team’s top draft picks in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
“They’re stronger, they’re faster,” Harrison said.
“Shazier even put on a little weight. I’m just leading them to water. It’s up to them to drink.”
While the group that was with him in Arizona are all blessed with youth, Harrison seems to have found the fountain of youth from which to drink.
Still, the Steelers foresee him playing 20 to 25 snaps per game this year in a rotation with Jones. Harrison will take whatever he can get.
“I’m almost 40 years old out here playing a game with young men,” Harrison said. “I’m just extremely blessed to be able to do it.”
But, he cautioned, “Don’t nobody want to come off the field when they get on. That’s just part of being a competitor.”
It also helps to push everyone to be better.
“We’re all friends off the field,” Williams said. “We want to see each other do well. But you’re still competing. That’s just the way it works.”