Pittsburgh Sports, Opinion and Politics | Just Watch the Game Blog

The Steelers and every other team in the NFL can begin signing free agents today and, because of the short amount of time and the number of decisions that need to be made, it could be that the teams that hold on to the largest number of their own players may have the advantage.

The draft picks have had no practice time and the undrafted free agents will have no pre-training camp orientation period.

That would seem to make it a good idea to retain as many of your own free agents as possible so that you have as many oriented players as possible when practice starts on Friday.

The Steelers most important unrestricted free agents are Ike Taylor and Willie Colon, but there are plenty of other players on the list who, while they may not have been tough to replace in normal times, become a lot more valuable now because they know the Steelers’ system.

Assuming the players ratify the new CBA, they are going to have it a lot easier from now on.

There will be no more two-a-days in training camp and things will be a lot easier for the players during the season, too.

The coaches aren’t happy and that’s no surprise. If it were up to them, they would practice 365 days a year.

In pads.

I think the players may have actually brought some sanity back to the game.

They only play 16 games. There’s something wrong somewhere when you feel you have to practice 15 days for every game that you play.

It can’t –or at least shouldn’t — be that complicated.

I remember when mini-camp was a new concept.

That made some sense because it followed the draft and was a good chance for the rookies to get acclimated.

OTA’s always seemed like overkill to me.

The coaches would have you believe that this is going to effect the quality of play.

I’m not buying it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually made the games better because they’ll be being played by guys who aren’t as mentally and physically burnt out.

Maybe training camps will open on time.

There are reports that the owners and the NFLPA have been making progress in their behind the scenes meetings

None of the back and forth was really worth our attention until there were some hard deadlines.

Some training camps should be opening in about six weeks and, according to the reports, a framework could be in place in two weeks.

Those camp openings are the first deadlines that matter.