New to Pittsburgh Steelers training camp is that linemen have to run after mistakes, and today, two rookie offensive linemen, Troy Fautanu and Mason McCormick, had to run after a false start. The one rookie offensive lineman who didn’t was center Zach Frazier, and he said that getting linemen to run is a “huge motivator.”
“It’s a big motivator because it’s embarrassing when you have to go out and run a lap. That’s just because you can’t do what’s going on before the snap, so we have to fix it, and one way to try to stop it is to have guys run a lap,” Frazier said via 93.7 The Fan.
#Mountaineers Rookie Zach Frazier in #Steelworkers OL/DL being called in for a lap due to mental errors image.twitter.com/ZIKUhVu8qT
— 93.7 The Fan (@937theFan) July 28, 2024
It’s embarrassing to be called out for a mistake and forced to run for it. While embarrassment alone won’t prevent mistakes before the snap, it certainly won’t hurt when trying to prevent them. Pre-snap penalties are incredibly costly and any method to try to reduce them is worthwhile.
By the looks of it, it’s working, too. Frazier said he’s motivating guys and Mike Tomlin said in his post-practice news conference that the Steelers are looking to use “every tool at our disposal” to help players learn.
“We are just trying to accelerate the learning process and using all the tools at our disposal to do so.”
Obviously, it’s not just the young guys who have to run if they make a mistake, but younger players will naturally be more prone to making mistakes as they adjust to the league and a new system. But with Arthur Smith as Pittsburgh’s offensive coordinator, it’s a new system for everyone on offense this year, and mistakes are going to happen early in camp.
As camp progresses, however, mistakes should happen less and less. Punishing mistakes with a lap is a good way to make sure mistakes don’t become habitual, and it’s something that will be on the minds of players. Perfecting play-counting and having each player do his job to avoid having to run a lap (and as a former offensive lineman, I can attest that running a lap in the heat is no fun) could help some of these mistakes dissipate.
Ultimately, we’ll see how effective these efforts were when the season begins and whether or not the Steelers can reduce their pre-snap penalties. If they do, credit to the staff for coming up with the idea of penalizing mistakes.
