It’s no secret that coach Mike Tomlin enjoys the three weeks the Pittsburgh Steelers spend each summer at training camp.

If Tomlin had his way, the Steelers would skip the nearly six-week break until they report to Latrobe on July 25 and get the process started immediately.

Tomlin joked as much Thursday at the conclusion of the team’s mandatory three-day minicamp.

“There is a segment of the coaching staff that is checking in as we speak,” Tomlin said with a smile.

The Steelers have trained at Saint Vincent College for the past 53 years, and Tomlin has been around for 12 of those seasons.

“We love Latrobe. We love our relationship with Saint Vincent,” Tomlin said. “It’s a great atmosphere and a great place for that part of the process. The fan support we get up there day to day is second to none.

“We love our time up there, for sure.”

For rookies such as fourth-round pick Benny Snell Jr., it will be the first time experiencing the atmosphere at Saint Vincent where thousands of fans pack the bleachers and hillsides surrounding Chuck Noll Field to watch practice.

“I heard Latrobe is the real deal,” Snell said. “That’s all I hear. It’s going to be a good day’s work every single day. The fans thing is pretty cool. I know Steelers fans are over-the-top crazy, and I love that.

“It definitely will be good to interact with them and get my work in at the same time.”

For the final day of minicamp, Tomlin put his team through a 70-minute workout, an abbreviated version of the 2-hour, 10-minute sessions conducted on the first two days of mandatory workouts. Tomlin excused many of the veteran players from practice, allowing younger players to command the majority of the snaps.

“We talked openly that we weren’t going to distribute reps evenly, we were going to distribute them appropriately,” Tomlin said. “We just felt like the young guys needed additional reps to gain experience, to display know-how, to gain and display conditioning – all the things that are going to put them on even footing and allow all 90 men to compete evenly in Latrobe.”

With minicamp concluding a two-month stretch of conditioning and practice time, the players have more than a month of free time until they will report back to work. Before dispatching his players, Tomlin left them with a twofold message.

“They have to show up ready, and we outlined that more in detail specifically for each guy,” he said. “Rest assured and conditioning and readiness has to be the most significant element of their time here in the upcoming weeks.”

Second-year cornerback Terrell Edmunds said the break comes at a good time for the players.

“It’s a grind, so when you leave, it’s like you have that little bit of break because you need a small, part-time break, just to get your mind relaxed,” he said. “You don’t want to be too uptight about things because that’s when you really make mistakes.”

When the Steelers report to training camp, all players on the roster will be expected to participate. No significant injuries were sustained at minicamp or over the course of 10 organized team activities. Players that had been nursing injuries in the offseason worked their way back to the practice field over the past four weeks.

“I’m extremely happy we were able to keep everyone healthy,” Tomlin said. “Injury is an element of play, and we work our tail off to make sure we create as safe an environment as we can, then we don’t spend much time dwelling on it.”

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)