Steelers training camp creates a magic and mystery that SteelersNow photographer Ed Thompson captured magnificently with his photo of D.K. Metcalf and Daylen Everette.
If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look:
D.K. Metcalf and Daylen Everett vie for an Aaron Rodgers pass at St. Vincents. Photo Credit: Ed Thompson, via SteelersNow
“A picture is worth a thousand words,” ladies and gentleman, see above for exhibit A.
- Judged on strictly aesthetic terms, Thompson’s photo stands as an outstanding work of art.
Photography should never be “Pritchard Scaled” (Google “Dead Poets Society Pritchard Scale scene” kids), but Thompson simultaneously delivers the grace and exhilaration of two football players striving for end zone excellence and done it with perfect proportions.
Dig a step deeper, and you see the subjects of Thompson’s uniting to symbolize something far greater than themselves.
When the networks first broached the NFL about broadcasting the draft, league executives initially balked asking – “Who would want to watch a bunch of names being called out at a podium?”
Today the NFL draft ranks only behind the Super Bowl and, perhaps, the conference championships in terms of viewership. And everyone understands why: the NFL isn’t selling names from a podium at the draft, it is selling hope.
- Training camp is the time when that abstract hope begins to transform itself into palpable possibility.
And the ariel duel between D.K. Metcalf and Daylen Everette vying for an Aaron Rodger’s pass unveils this process in real time.
- Metcalf had his ups and his downs in 2025.
Thompson’s photo shows us how Metcalf just might change things for the better in 2026.
St. Vincents provides Steelers Nation with its hallowed ground. Today we call it Chuck Noll Field because Noll built the foundation of four Super Bowl champions on that grass. Two other summers have seen Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin follow in his footsteps.
And Ed Thompson’s photo of Metcalf and Everette gives us our first visual suggestion that Mike McCarthy might to the same – that’s the magic of training camp.
Sometimes these flashes from St. Vincents translate sustain themselves into something bigger and more substantial in the regular season and beyond….
…And sometimes they don’t. That’s the mystery training camp.
And thanks to Ed Thompson, we see it all in a single shot.
Editor’s note: You can see three more shots of Thompson’s entire sequence here on X. You can follow Ed Thompson’s work here on X and here on SteelersNow.
