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Steelers 27
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Position preview: Center
July, 10, 2014
By Scott Brown | ESPN.com
This is the next in a series that previews every position on offense and defense with training camp approaching. Our seventh look is at center.
Returning starter: Maurkice Pouncey. The three-time Pro Bowler returns after missing all but eight snaps last season because of a torn ACL. Pouncey looked terrific during offseason practices, and the Steelers have already rewarded him with a five-year contract extension.
Key loss: Fernando Velasco. He would have gotten a lot of votes for most unsung Steelers player last season after taking over for the injured Pouncey in the second game of the season. Velasco started 11 games at center before rupturing his Achilles tendon. The shame of that injury is Velasco would have likely parlayed his work with the Steelers into a multi-year contract and starting job elsewhere. He remains unsigned as he works his way back from the injury.
On the bubble: David Snow. The Texas product signed with the Steelers early last December to provide depth, but he didn’t dress in any of their last four games. Snow has to beat out Cody Wallace, who appears to be pretty entrenched as Pouncey’s primary backup who can also play guard.
By the numbers: Pouncey played in 45 of 48 regular-season games from 2010-12, starting all of them, before missing most of last season with a knee injury.
Did you know? Wallace is with his sixth NFL organization. A fourth-round pick by the 49ers in 2008, Wallace had never started an NFL game before taking over at center for the final four contests in 2013 and helping the Steelers average 115.3 rushing yards.
Quotable: “These guys really rally around him. They really are encouraged by watching the way he worked out after being hurt in the opener. How he’s come back and all the time he’s put in this building to get the chance to be part of these workouts again, I’m really excited where he’s at, and I’m really excited as a line coach when you know you have a guy like him locked up for a long term.” – offensive line coach Mike Munchak on Pouncey.
Outlook: Velasco and Wallace did an admirable job of holding down the position last season, but Pouncey is one of the top centers in the NFL when healthy. His return should provide a big boost to a unit that allowed just seven sacks in the Steelers' final seven games in 2013 and came together in the second half of the season. Pouncey still has growth potential and should only get better while working with Munchak.
[URL]http://espn.go.com/blog/pittsburgh-steelers/post/_/id/7498/position-preview-center[/URL]Comment
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Mike Munchak's approach a hit with players
August, 8, 2014
AUG 8
By Scott Brown | ESPN.com
LATROBE, Pa. -- His credentials as an offensive line coach are such that Mike Munchak could have easily told his players the first time he met with them as a group they need to do it his way.
No questions asked.
That Munchak has taken pretty much the opposite approach is one reason why left guard Ramon Foster recently said, “He’s golden with me.”
“The way he comes at you is respectful and makes you want to work for the guy,” Foster said.
Added Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey, “I can’t praise him enough the things he brings to us. He’s the man.”
Munchak, who joined Mike Tomlin’s staff last January, would shrug off such talk -- just as he did in June when asked if he was the Steelers’ most significant offseason addition.
But Munchak, a Pro Football Hall of Fame guard and highly-regarded line coach, clearly has a presence, even when he is just leading his players through drills before the start of practice. That presence, his résumé and his love of teaching form the foundation of a coaching style that is noticeably lacking in volume.
“Our group is like a family. Just like my children I can look at you and I know what you did wrong and you know what you did wrong and we’re good with that,” Munchak said on why he doesn’t go ballistic when one of his players makes a mistakes. “I don’t need to scream so everyone can see that I’m really coaching my guys up. Sometimes I find that coaches will go nuts on a guy and you’ll look at the tape and you were wrong as a coach. The perception is maybe the media watching practice is going that guy’s getting chewed out and the next day I realize, geez, I was wrong. I think you have to be careful.”
That is not to say Munchak is too buddy-buddy with his players or soft on them. He just doesn’t see the point in embarrassing players to get his point across.
“Some guys needs a push, and we’ve had some good talks in our meeting room. We’ve had talks on the field. They get the point,” Munchak said. “That’s how I liked to be coached when I played, and I’ve got to do what’s most comfortable for me because players can tell if ‘I’m real or not.”
That authenticity as well as Munchak’s philosophical approach to coaching is what has really endeared him to his players.
“I’m big on explaining to them the whole picture,” said Munchak, who coached the Oilers/Titans offensive line from 1997-2010 and spent the previous season as the Titans’ head coach. “Here’s what we’re doing, here’s the concept, this is what we believe in, and then they believe in it and they understand the concepts so they can apply it. They appreciate that and they want to see accountability for all of them, not just ‘Hey, Pounce you get a free ride because you guys have been here.’ They see everyone’s getting treated the same way that way.”
[URL]http://espn.go.com/blog/pittsburgh-steelers/post/_/id/8052/mike-munchaks-approach-a-hit-with-players[/URL]Comment
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Man, backup oline is SO BADComment
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Im actually not too worried about this. Sure, the entire backup line wasn't very good, but other than preseason, when is this team EVER going to be in a situation where the entire backup online is in the game???
Injuries may necessitate one or two backups in the game at a given moment, but never the entire second or third unit.Comment
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I know, but they are very bad. At least the starters look like the best in a long time. Bunch of nobodies backing them up.
I always felt like we had 1-2 quality backups before...but beachum and foster are now starters lolComment
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We'll keep 9 OL on the roster, with 7 active on gamedays. Beachum, Foster, Pouncey, DeCastro, and Gilbert will start. Cody Wallace will back up the 3 interior OL spots and Mike Adams will be the backup swing tackle. Veteran tackle Guy Whimper and versatile rookie Wesley Johnson likely make the final 53 man roster but are inactive most weeks until injuries strike. Perhaps Chris Hubbard or Will Simmons can challenge Wesley Johnson for that final roster spot if the team feels that it can stick Johnson on the P.S. for his first year. It doesn't really matter how good the rest of the guys are at this point, since they will all likely be out of a job in a few weeks, with the exception of a practice squad guy or two.Steeler teams featuring stat-driven, me-first, fantasy-football-darling diva types such as Antonio Brown & Le'Veon Bell won no championships.
Super Bowl winning Steeler teams were built around a dynamic, in-your-face defense plus blue-collar, hard-hitting, no-nonsense football players on offense such as Hines Ward & Jerome Bettis.
We don't want Juju & Conner to replace what we lost in Brown & Bell.
We are counting on Juju & Conner to return us to the glory we once had with Hines & The Bus.Comment
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@EdBouchette: #Steelers trying to sign OT Marcus Gilbert to contract extension. Could be done this weekComment
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Steeler teams featuring stat-driven, me-first, fantasy-football-darling diva types such as Antonio Brown & Le'Veon Bell won no championships.
Super Bowl winning Steeler teams were built around a dynamic, in-your-face defense plus blue-collar, hard-hitting, no-nonsense football players on offense such as Hines Ward & Jerome Bettis.
We don't want Juju & Conner to replace what we lost in Brown & Bell.
We are counting on Juju & Conner to return us to the glory we once had with Hines & The Bus.Comment
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Rough first outing for reserve linemen
by Ray Fittipaldo
The Steelers gave second-year guard Chris Hubbard a long look during the first two weeks of training camp and they did the same in the first preseason game against the Giants Saturday night. Hubbard saw 48 offensive snaps, including four with the first-team offense after starting left guard Ramon Foster left the game with an eye injury. Unfortunately for Hubbard, he didn’t make the most of his reps.
Hubbard was leaky in pass protection and not much better in the run game. What was apparent to the naked eye on the telecast was confirmed by Pro Football Focus, which blamed Hubbard for three quarterback hurries, two more than any other Steelers offensive lineman.
Hubbard had done much better against the Steelers defense in the first two weeks of camp. He took the first-team reps for the first few days of camp when Ramon Foster was away from the team because of his mother’s death. When Foster was injured last week Hubbard once again ran with the first-team offense. He played fairly well. The same can’t be said for his first preseason outing of 2014.
If Hubbard follows up with a bad practice or two this week we could see more of undrafted free agent guard/center Chris Elkins, a camp standout who played only nine snaps against the Giants.
Overall, it was not a good night for the players vying for reserve roles on the line.
First, the good news: the starters, except for Foster, took 14 reps and did not allow a sack while providing running lanes for Le’Veon Bell that helped the Steelers score the first points of the game.
The bad news: just about everyone that entered the game thereafter had some struggles against the Giants’ front. Second-team right guard Bryant Browning gave up a sack and a hurry. Reserve right tackle Guy Whimper allowed a hurry and a hit on the quarterback as did Cody Wallace.
The only reserve lineman with a clean sheet, according to PFF, was Mike Adams, who struggled for much of the first two weeks of camp. Adams played a team-high 53 snaps. It should be noted that Giants first-team defensive end Jason Pierre Paul went right around Adams and provided pressure on a pass play in the first quarter when the Giants first-team defense played against the Steelers’ second-team offense. The only thing that saved Adams was the fact that Hubbard’s man got pressure first and they gave the hurry to Hubbard on a play when Bruce Gradkowski was forced to throw the ball away.
The Steelers are likely to keep three reserve linemen. Adams, Wallace and Whimper are the frontrunners to earn those jobs. In week 1 of the preseason no one threatened to change those plans.
A few other notes:
*Among offensive skill position players, Justin Brown led all Steelers with 46 snaps while veteran Lance Moore got just three.
*Sixth-round pick Jordan Zumwalt didn’t have a chance to show the coaches much during the first two weeks of camp because of a groin injury, but the linebacker from UCLA was credited with six tackles in only 25 defensive snaps.
*Other defensive standouts included DE/NT Cam Thomas, who had three tackles and a QB hurry in 18 snaps; ILB Vince Williams, who had four tackles and a hit on the QB; and S Jordan Dangerfield, who had three tackles.
Of note:
*Rookie sixth-round pick Daniel McCullers played 22 snaps at nose tackle while Hebron Fangupo played only eight. McCullers was credited with a QB hurry.
[URL]http://sportsblogs.post-gazette.com/sports/steelers-steelers-blog/2014/08/11/Rough-first-outing-for-reserve-linemen.html[/URL]Comment
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Justin Brown was a major disappointment for leading the offense in snaps. Then again, like i said the backup olines were pure ****
Mccullers was interesting. Almost looks better off at DE than NT thoughComment
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