Training camp is a weird time for a football fan. There's pretty much no actual news unless someone gets injured, but with everyone ready to talk about football, good news gets manufactured. This kind of stuff gets thrown in training camp by every team, every year. In my mind, this came to a head last Saturday in Dejan Kovacevic's column. This isn't to harp on Kovacevic (or any other writer, for that matter) but I try to temper my expectations in training camp.
This team knows that they got complacent last year? Good. Troy Polamalu is in great shape? Excellent. Ben Roethlisberger is excited about the offense? He should be. Most of these same headlines are being written about every team though. Watch how easy it is to invent a training camp storyline: "The Atlanta Falcons head in to this season determined to shake off Matt Ryan's reputation for choking." or how about, "The Oakland Raiders are excited about having [insert this year's quarterback] to build the offense around." All you have to do is take something you knew about the team last year, and put an optimistic spin on it. Boom, you have a story and it's full of good news.
Again, this is anything but a shot at those writers. The fact of the matter is that nothing has happened yet, and writers have pages to fill. If we're lucky, we get some first hand information about who is getting the bulk of the carries with the first team offense or which rookie has been shutting someone down in practice. That's as close as we get to solid news and it doesn't go very far.
If last year's Steeler team got complacent down the stretch, it could happen this year too. Troy Polamalu could be in great shape in August and be sidelined with a knee injury by Week 8. That second cornerback position could prove to be a weakness in the Steelers' defense. This isn't meant to rain on the parade, just a reminder to temper expectations when good news is flooding out of every camp in the country. Some of it is going to have to go badly.
When the Steelers take the field Saturday night, we'll all be able to watch and evaluate the team on our own. From there we can at least break down who played well or not and how it might impact his standing with the coaches. Until then, there's more noise than news.
