43
Steelers veterans show up to team complex after lockout
AP
Photo
Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendehall, left, greats offensive lineman Ramon Foster in the parking lot of the team's football training facility in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, July 26, 2011, the day after the NFL lockout ended. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
AP
Photo
Pittsburgh Steelers offensive guard Chris Kemoeatu leaves the NFL football team's training facility in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, July 26, 2011. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
AP
Photo
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin arrives at the NFL football team's training facility in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, July 26, 2011. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Steelers veterans show up
Associated Press
PITTSBURGH
Sure, there weren’t any high-intensity cardiovascular workouts, no comprehensive study of playbook intricacies, no formal weightlifting. And certainly nothing close to a full-pads practice.
But that didn’t matter to Pittsburgh Steelers second-year receiver Emmanuel Sanders. All he cared about on Tuesday was the fact that, at last, the Steelers had removed the metaphorical locks from the doors of the team’s complex on the city’s South Side.
“I am just happy to be back in the facility,” he said, “and be around the coaches and be around the team.”
One day after the NFL and its players’ union announced the end of the 41/2 month lockout, Sanders was one of almost a dozen Steelers veterans — along with several rookies — who made an appearance.
The veterans showing up was more, well, for show than anything else.
Sanders arrived not long after fellow young receiver Antonio Brown did the same just after the 10 a.m. league-mandated official opening. The two good friends left at roughly the same time, too, after no more than two hours at the complex.
“We threw out on the field and ran a couple of routes,” Sanders said. “And I beat [reserve cornerback Crezdon Butler] in ping pong. That’s about it.”
All-Pro linebacker James Harrison was the first player seen to arrive — but he spent only a few minutes unloading his red pickup truck. Embroiled in a controversy after making some off-color remarks targeting NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to Men’s Journal magazine earlier this month, Harrison did not speak to reporters.
Other veterans on the premises Tuesday included defensive end Brett Keisel — his beard significantly shorter than it was during February’s Super Bowl — as well as Pittsburgh’s two starting guards from that 31-25 loss to the Green Bay Packers, Ramon Foster and Chris Kemoeatu.
While, at times, negotiations between the league and its players became contentious, Steelers players’ union representative Ryan Clark said there won’t be any lingering effects in the relationship between the players and the Rooney family.
During his weekly morning show appearance on KDKA-FM in Pittsburgh, Clark said that after the new collective bargaining agreement was announced, Steelers president Art Rooney II thanked Clark for representing the team’s players.
“The only owners I care about are the Rooneys,” Clark said on the radio show. “As far as we’re concerned, we’re collectively ready to win championships. I’m ready for [Rooney] to give us his speech at the beginning of camp, and we’re ready to go out and work.
“They’ve been good to us, and the deal is a good deal. It’s not like they just put it out there and didn’t give us anything ... It’s time to play football and just put this all behind us.”