Jul 29, 2017 3 min read

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You see some funny things at practice sometimes and Saturday’s practice, which was moved to Latrobe High School for the second consecutive day, was no different.

On one play, fullback Roosevel Nix snuck out into the flat to the left of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

As Roethlisberger let go of the pass, safety Sean Davis closed quickly. The ball tipped off the hands of Nix and into the arms of Davis, who looked to have a sure interception.

Instead, the ball went through his arms and was batted into the air in the waiting arms of Nix, who promptly scooted down the sideline.

Head coach Mike Tomlin was right on top of the play.

“Hey coach,” Davis said to Tomlin. “Don’t put that on the highlight film tonight. That’s embarrassing.”

Tomlin laughed and replied, “Hey, you write the script.”

You can bet his teammates who did not see that play in the 7-on-7 drill will get a chuckle out of it, as well.

@ L.J. Fort jumped a pass in the seven shots drill to start practice, picking off the ball thrown by rookie Josh Dobbs and quickly going the other way.

Fort felt he would have scored had the play continued. “I just had to beat Dobbs,” he said.

@ Justin Hunter had a nice practice today. He failed to get both feet down on a pass from Roethlisberger on the first seven-shots attempt, but did so later when Roethlisberger came back to him again.

Hunter is running with the first-team offense right now with Martavis Bryant and Sammie Coates both out of action. And the free agent signee has made some nice plays.

Roethlisberger praised him in the spring and the former second-round draft pick of the Tennessee Titans seems to be making a nice push here.

But, the team will start hitting Sunday, and that’s when things could change.

Hunter also isn’t much of a special teams player, so that could be an issue for him, as well.

@ The Steelers have some positions that are loaded with competition. Cornerback would be a prime example, where even guys such as journeyman Mike Hilton have looked good.

The offensive line, however, has little in the way of competition in this camp – barring injury.

The starting five and backups Chris Hubbard, B.J. Finney and Jerald Hawkins are pretty set.

In fact, Hubbard and Finney could both start for a lot of teams around the league and had Hawkins come out of college this year, he would have been no worse than a second-round draft pick instead of the fourth-round pick he was in 2016.

@ It’s somewhat surprising to me, but I’ve heard Tyler Matakevich has the inside track on being the top backup to Ryan Shazier and Vince Williams at inside linebacker.

The Steelers love Matakevich’s smarts.