Aug 1, 2020 5 min read

These are strange times in the world of sports. Heck, they are strange times in general, so sports are certainly no different.

Coach Mike Tomlin and the Steelers reported for training camp last week.

But given the current rules of the NFL, they won’t hold their first team workout until Monday. And that workout will only be what they would have accomplished during the first phase of their OTAs earlier this year.

Then, they’ll quickly begin to ramp up over the next two weeks to the point where they can finally hold their first padded practice Aug. 17.

From there, they’ll get 14 padded practices with not a single preseason game to prepare for the start of the regular season.

It should be interesting seeing what challenges await the 32 teams in the league.

“I think we are going to all discover that. I’ve been in the league 20 years. I’ve never been in a situation like this where we’re going into it without the opportunity to have preseason games,” Tomlin said. “I feel like I have an understanding of the issues of what’s required and the process that we need to take our guys through in order to be ready. I think all of us collectively are going to be feeling our way to some degree, and there will possibly be issues revealed to us along the way. We have to have a hardcore plan, but we also have to be light on our feet and be thoughtful, particularly about the things we ask inexperienced players to do as we divvy up and define roles.”

As has been the feeling all along, teams with less roster turnover during the offseason and more continuity are going to benefit from this shortened run up to the 2020 regular season.

That would seem to include the Steelers, who essentially return 20 of 22 starters. Oh, and Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback.

Roethlisberger’s return won’t solve all of the Steelers’ offensive issues from last season. But it sure won’t hurt, either.

“What Ben brings to the table that is so unique is the experience that he has in the red zone, which we sorely missed last year with young quarterbacks,” offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner said. “The idea where he’s seen so many in-helmet perspectives, you’re not going to fool him. He’s going to throw a touchdown where you’re just going to say, ‘Wow!’ That’s what those experienced, top-flight, best quarterbacks in the league do. I keep saying his abilities on third down, that’s the experience, that’s the thing you can’t put a value on that he brings to the table.”

With so much returning – and even the open spots in the starting lineup likely being filled by players who have been with the team – the Steelers can essentially pick up where they left off last season both offensively and, perhaps more importantly, defensively.

Teams that had a bunch of turnover, are expecting rookies to contribute or have a new head coach will likely be playing things pretty vanilla early in the year.

That includes the Steelers’ first two opponents. The New York Giants and Denver Broncos each will be starting inexperienced quarterbacks in Daniel Jones and Drew Lock, respectively. And the Giants have a whole new coaching staff.

What it could mean for the Steelers, who have been slow starters for the better part of the past two decades, is they can get off to a hot start this year.

We’ll see. Certainly, the team could be hit by a spate of coronavirus that would change things dramatically.

As we saw with the Miami Marlins’ situation in baseball last week, things can change quickly.

“That is the message that I am delivering to those guys. We have to conduct ourselves accordingly,” Tomlin said. “There has been a lot of work to position ourselves to be where we are right now. It is one fail; all fail in this environment. We are going to continue to package the messaging that way and be very transparent.”

• NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sent a message to fans that promised a complete season. But Goodell also seemingly purposely didn’t include the phrase 16-game season.

The league plans on playing a 16-game season. But there are any number of things that could happen to change that. And the league has plans to handle those situations.

Remember, this is a league that played 15 games in 1987 and nine games in 1982 because of player strikes.

So, if the league has to play fewer than 16 games, it won’t be the end of the world. There will still be a Super Bowl played and a champion determined at some point.

• Some have asked why the NFL didn’t attempt to play games in a “bubble” as the NBA and NHL are doing.

Those two leagues are in their postseason tournaments.

The NFL and Major League Baseball are attempting to play a regular season.

How could the NFL play all of its games in one or two sites considering it would have 16 games per week and games take at least three hours to complete?

With warmups and everything else involved, a typical NFL game takes up to five hours. Even if the league split things into two pods, it would still need 40 hours to play eight games in each bubble.

That’s just not realistic.