Goal line ending

Mike Tomlin called the troops together before the final session of Sunday afternoon's practice. As has been the case throughout this camp, we’re not quite sure what to expect in these situations. In this instance, he was calling the boys together to let them know to keep things clean in their final drill - goal line.

Setting up at the 2, the first-team offense tried a dive by Willie Parker. He was stuffed cold by nose tackle Casey Hampton for no gain.

On the second attempt, the pitch went to Parker, running left, who made it into the end zone untouched.

Next, it was Najeh Davenport’s turn. He took the handoff off right tackle and was stopped intially by the duo of Ryan Clark and Ike Taylor – high and low – before the rest of the defense came in to clean things up.

Hampton made the big move after that, switching over to offense, where he lined up at fullback in front of Davenport. The play went behind right guard and Hampton hit the hole full speed, running into linebacker Clint Kriewaldt. It was a wasted effort as Davenport was stopped at the 1.

After that, it was defensive end Brett Keisel’s turn to line up with the other side. Keisel set up on next to left tackle and ran a drag across the end zone and Batch lofted a pass that Keisel hauled in along the back line with two defenders in tow.

With the defense ahead three stops to two scores, the next play went to Carey Davis. Davis took the pitch to the right, but was stopped by Rian Wallace and William Gay at the 1.

James Harrison missed practice today with what Tomlin deemed a rib injury. Interestingly enough, instead of moving Arnold Harrison into the starting lineup, the team decided instead to move Clark Haggans to right outside linebacker and insert LaMarr Woodley in at left outside linebacker.