McCarthy reveals Steelers 6 Primary Fundamentals

LATROBE (93.7 The Fan) – Over the last couple of decades there have been several phrases Mike Tomlin has said repeatedly that became the mantra of the organization or for a particular season. For Mike McCarthy it reads more like commandments.

It’s not ‘the standard is the standard’ which was posted outside of the locker room at Acrisure Stadium or ‘the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror’ or ‘make routine plays routinely’. For McCarthy it’s a ‘The Steelers Six’.

It’s the six primary fundamentals that he emphasizes daily

• 1.Ball Security—taking care of it and extracting it
• 2.Blocking—sustaining and getting off blocks
• 3.Tackling—getting a player to the ground & breaking tackles
• 4.Big Play—‘you can’t win in the NFL without big plays’
• 5.The Finish—on average 8 games a year come down to the last series
• 6.Mannerisms & Disguise—executing and recognizing

“I really love what he’s brought and love the culture he’s trying to instill in us,” said quarterback Will Howard. “He’s really trying to take the blue-collar, the grit of Pittsburgh and instilling that into this team. The six pillars all reflect that.”

On Thursday before practice McCarthy broke down for the team the anatomy of a play. This is kind of a peek into how McCarthy’s brain works and how he goes after every detail.

“The pre-snap is the first part of a play. So everything that goes on in the pre-snap up until the ball is snapped. The specifics, the mannerisms, disguise. That's why it's a fundamental, the cadence, the substitution patterns, the ability to get the personnel in quickly in the red zone. So you have to practice all those little things now because it's going to show up in preseason games. It's going to show up when you get out there for the first time with a 90-man roster.”

“So, you got the pre-snap, but as you watch film, you study the film, you'll see in the first 2.3 seconds, that's really the that's the execution battleground. That's where really the play gets established in the first 2.3 (seconds). So that's another time clock. So then above 2.3, 2.5, now you get into extended play.”

“Okay, so now we're talking about extended plays, which is big plays. Big play opportunities, which is another Steeler fundamental.”

“So that's the way my brain works. That's the way I've learned it through the eyes of a quarterback in my time in this league, and that's the way we train our team. So all our situational emphasis really is broken down every specific play and how we can train in those little segments and hopefully, as I express this, hopefully you see that in our practice structure.”

You may have thought McCarthy was just a hard-working Yinzer, there is so much more to how he thinks the game of football.