Pittsburgh Steelers One item was clearly
out of place in the Pittsburgh Steelers' locker room on the final day of
minicamp. But Mike Mitchell said there was nothing to read into the Carolina
Panthers helmet hanging in his locker on Thursday. "Pittsburgh
Steelers It means I haven't found a house yet to put it in my basement,"
Mitchell said. The Panthers mailed Mitchell a helmet that many of his
former teammates had signed, and there is some significance to the keepsake
from the season he spent in Carolina.
"That group that we had there last year I think the biggest thing that
made us so successful is we were genuinely friends off the field and really
cared about each other," Mitchell said. The Steelers' defensive players
have generally been a tight group and that bodes well for the transition
Mitchell is making on the field and away from it. Mitchell becomes just the
third free safety to play regularly with Troy Polamalu, joining Chris Hope
and Ryan Clark, and the two started to get to know one another during
minicamp. "He's a super nice guy," Mitchell said. "It's humbling
for me to see that because for him to be one of the best safeties to play the
game he's a super humble guy. The way he treats people and goes about his
business I admire that a lot. It's not even a football thing it's a personal
thing I've noticed." Pittsburgh
Steelers Much has been made about the
rapport Polamalu and Clark developed and how much it helped the two on the
field. There is no reason to think that Polamalu and Mitchell won't build a
similar friendship. Polamalu is a super nice guy when he is not
chasing down running backs as if they stole something from him or soaring over
the line of scrimmage and landing in the laps of startled quarterbacks. The
eight-time Pro Bowler is one of the biggest pranksters in the Steelers' locker
room, something that also endears him to teammates. Mitchell, meanwhile, is an
engaging guy who wants to be great and relishes the opportunity to play with a
safety of Polamalu's caliber. He is, in fact, a lot like Clark
though with the volume turned down. "What made Chris Hope and I very
successful on the back end is that we were great friends. The same thing with
Ryan," Polamalu said, Pittsburgh Steelers "With any other team, it's
just plug-and-play. But the strength of this organization has always been in
the camaraderie and the relationships of the players off the field, Pittsburgh Steelers and
then we stand up for one another on the field. So we have to develop those
relationships." It will be a process with Polamalu and Mitchell and one
that really starts when the Steelers report to training camp on July 25th. But
Mitchell is confident that he and Polamalu will get to know one another well
enough for them to thrive together on the field. "It's just us hammering
out reps together," Pittsburgh Steelers Mitchell said. "I think you
need a little adversity too because you can't really tell who a person is or
how they're going to respond until you get into tough situations. Pittsburgh
Steelers It could be a game until we really are on the same page now but it's a
process of growing together so we can get to a point where I just know how
thinks," Pittsburgh Steelers.
