The players’ names change, but Mike Tomlin gets asked the same sort of question every year during May. June and late July and early August, too. The Pittsburgh Steelers coach has little appetite or incentive to answer it, no matter how it’s phrased.

Tomlin’s longstanding policy about evaluating new players before the pads come on or any sort of game action has stood throughout his 14-season tenure as Steelers coach.

“We’re not in the evaluating stage yet,” was Tomlin’s answer when asked about how he is evaluating his rookies during the virtual rookie minicamp earlier this month.

“We’re in a teaching and instruction stage right now.”

The coronavirus pandemic-inspired unique nature of this year’s offseason only emphasizes and requires Tomlin’s outlook even more. With players not in the building for any of the stages of the NFL’s offseason program nor for rookie minicamp — and not even for organized team activities that begin this week — it is prudent to avoid makingjudgments about a player based on what he’s showing over FaceTime and Zoom.

“We will be in that (teaching-but-not-evaluating mode) until we get into a football environment in a training camp-like setting, and we’re playing the game,” Tomlin said. “All the things that we’re doing for them right now is preparing them for that, and so there is very little evaluating in these circumstances and that would be the same if we were working together.”

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At some point, as many of the rookies have discussed, their lack of on-field time and decreased reps with veteran teammates would figure to take a toll on young players’ development and harm their chances of making the roster or scaling the depth chart.

It would seem that the very best-case scenario for the 2020 NFL preseason as things stand now is a training camp (or reasonable facsimile) starting at or near the normal time (late July). OTAs and mandatory minicamp are likely to be virtual if they take place, and they are not happening at their normal dates.

Speaking earlier this month, Tomlin was not concerned his rookies were falling behind.

“The only thing that we’re evaluating (presently) is how they learn,” Tomlin said, “and it’s not done so in an effort to evaluate them, it’s done in an effort to effectively teach them and utilize all the tools at our disposal to make sure we have them moving in the right direction in terms of being ready for training camp. “

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