October 17, 2025 • 41 mins
Tim Benz in for Mark, he and Tommy Radio talk about the Steelers loss to the Bengals last night.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The man who usually hosts this show, Mark Madden. In
case you're curious and confused, I'm Tim Ben's in for Mark.
Mark Offin says that Mike Tomlin would rather be right
than win. Well, last night, Tomlin was proven right about
Joe Flacco, and he's sure as hell didn't win. In fact,
(00:25):
as the hours get further and further away from that
thirty three to thirty one defeat in Cincinnati, I'm starting
to wonder if Tomlin ended up losing and being right
ironically all at the same time and hurting his team's
chances of winning as a net result. Expanded covers of
The Mark Madden Show is backed by the personal injury
(00:46):
experts Shnderovitch, Shnderovitch and Fishman.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
They've got your back, not your wallet.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
And if you bet on the Steelers last night, you
are a lot lighter in the wallet.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And I think you're pretty light.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
In the head, because if you couldn't see at the
very least a ball breaking, headbanging, hand ringing, tooth gnashing victory,
if you couldn't forecast at least that probably happening for
the Steelers in Cincinnati, then you just haven't been paying attention.
To how the Steelers operate within the division, on the road,
(01:19):
Thursday Night Football, or basically at all in the entire
Tomlin era. As soon as it starts to look really
really good, you start to feel really really bad. And
I don't know how you can feel good about what
you saw last night, not just for one night, but
for moving forward as well.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Tommy Radio joins me.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Right now, tom let's just get right into it, because,
as I talked about with Mike Decorsi on my Friday
Football show on the Tribli Facebook stream and on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I wrote about it there too.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I feel like this whole Mike Tomlin obsession with Joe
Flacco that coalesced with his comments about Andrew Berry during
his Monday press conference this week. The way that that
defense played last night, it's almost like Tomlin's discussion about
Flacco manifested the defensive result that we saw, or, if
(02:19):
you want to look at it a different way, the
defense's inability to string together three good games manifested what
Tomlin was worried about into being right. I don't know
how else to look at it. I'm just so obsessed
on that one point. It's like Tomlin spoke Thursday Night's
(02:39):
reality Tomlin spoke Thursday Night's result into happening on Monday.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Am I wrong about that? No, You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
It's honestly hilarious that it played out this way, that
Mike Tomlin showed his hand a little bit, a little
bit of fear when it comes to Joe Flacco being
the quarterback, and then Flacco went out and delivered what
Mike Tomlin feared. And I don't I haven't seen the
exact number yet, but it felt to me like they
were blitzing a little bit less right.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
It felt to me like they.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Were kind of going into more of a conservative They're
gonna get the ball out quick, so let's emphasize coverage
as opposed to pressure. Just picked them apart. That's kind
of the same thing that happened in the Colts game
last year with Joe Flacco.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Well, if you're gonna do that, then why have Nick
Herbig only played thirty eight percent of the snap? So
unless we're going to find out that he's hurt, which
we can't rule that out with his history, but.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
That's my point.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's like, why did you get away from that chaotic
pass rush that has really been allowing your defense to
play elite because of that. It all starts there. And
again I'm not an idiot. I know Flaco was getting
It was like two point four to four seconds. I
think I saw was this time to throw the ball?
I mean, you can still get to a quarterback in
that amount of time more often than this.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Well, then your grand experiment in the secondary has failed
because that this game is why it was put together,
and that was a failure.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
And do you think they were leaning on that a
little bit too, where it was like, we don't need
to supply the pass rush and create that chaos. We
can emphasize help in coverage and Flacco will just be
lost because our corners are good anyway, and they'll shut
down those receivers. I wonder if that's what they went
into the game thinking. And I see people really complaining
a lot about adjustment. So how do you let Chase
(04:20):
keep burning you? How come you couldn't adjust in the secondary?
Oh they did. I mean they threw every coverage they
possibly could think of. At the Bengals Double Flo talked
about it. Yeah, on the post games. They were changing
it all up. They were trying different things, and none
of it was working. Which is kind of scarier when
you think about it, that it wasn't like a coaching thing.
It was just the players out there getting cooked. But
I will say I think they should have adjusted at
(04:41):
halftime to more of a let's send six or seven
at Flacco. You know, let's put our guys on an island.
It's a little tenuous with how good Chase was in
that first half, but we got to get Flacco off
the spot. I mean, he's just one two step and
hits easy throws for him.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
As Rogers is proving behind the Steelers offensive line. And
by the way, the best tackle of the night was
Broderick Jones on Aaron Rodgers was celebrating going to the sideline.
At least Broderick Jones made his impact. Note, Well, he
had as many tackles as TJ. Watt, so give him
credit for that. And actually I think DK Metcalf literally
did have more tackles than TJ. Watt on the two
(05:16):
interception picks. But what Rogers has proven is that you
can be accurate in two point five seconds and move
an offense and score beyond what your usual yardage totals indicate.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I've gone through the numbers with you.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I don't know how many times where they're twenty ninth,
thirty first, twenty fifth, twenty seventh, whatever in the league
and rushing, passing in total yards, and then they are
right in the middle of the pack an average team
in the NFL in scoring at like twenty four points
per game, which actually went up last night.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So he's proven that.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
But there's a big difference between I can be accurate,
get the ball out on time, and hit my guy
how I want to hit my guy when like you're saying,
bring six or seven, cover with everybody else who's ever left,
even if you gotta throw a safety on somebody. Yes,
and if the pass rush is getting there in one
point five, he's got to get rid of it even quicker.
(06:12):
And maybe it's not accurate, maybe it does go over
the receiver's head, or it bounces, or it gets picked off.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
If a quarterback sees.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
The house coming, he's not gonna be comfortable enough to
even wait two point five.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
He's gonna get it out quicker than that.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So yes, I agree with you, But like I can't
remember which quarter it was, and I want to say
it was in the second quarter. I might be wrong
on that, but they had a shot from behind Flaco
for an end zone camera behind Flacco, and they showed
kind of like a delayed blitz that the Steelers were
running where Elliott came in between the gap of the
(06:50):
left guard and the left tackle, so the left side
of the offensive line. He's attacking the left side of
the offensive line from the defense's right side.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
He comes in, he blitzes.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
And then Queen sort of runs this delay blitz behind it,
like he was kind of showing coverage and then blitzing
in behind it. But it was way too late and
way too long.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Not necessary. Against Joe, it was.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Almost like, Okay, he was gonna read wherever they picked
up Elliott, he was gonna come in from the other hole.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I like that against the quarterbacks. He got rid of
the ball, That's what I'm saying. I like that against
the quarterback, like three seconds holding onto the ball, Dylan Gabriel,
he's looking at it through his progressions. Yeah, exactly. That's
not gonna work against Joe Flacco. He's one read to read.
I gotta get rid of this thing. And that's all
he was thinking about in that game. And every time
it was usually just one read and I'm gonna throw
it to that one read Jamar Chase, whether he's open
or not, twenty three targets. I still can't get over that.
(07:40):
He was just Chase Chase, Chase Chase every single time.
And how many times do you think he really was open.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
On those twenty three targets? Probably like half of them. No, no, no, no,
I think he was open more than that.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Oh okay, see, I bet she was probably open thirty
or thirty five times. But T was open more on
given plays or Yoshi vas was open more on.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
The Joey Porter Junior. Your thing with t Higgins just
does not work. Last year he got like eighteen defensive
pass interferences. He got a couple more in this game.
He got cooked a couple times in this game. Like
they love this idea of Joey's gonna take te Higgins out.
I like that size matchup, it just does not work.
Higgins eats him for lunch.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
One thing I worried about going into this game and
it was proven true, was it does look like Jalen
Ramsey is a great piece to have on the defense.
He is great at blitzing and creating chaos. He can
play multiple positions. He's a tough look and a tough matchup.
You don't know exactly what kind of chess piece you're
(08:37):
dealing with here.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Is he a rook? Is he a knight? Is he
a queen? Is he a king?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
You know, like, you don't know what you're looking at
necessarily when you stare across and you see what Ramsey
is doing. There's a little polamalu element to all of that.
So it is intriguing in that regard. But the one
thing he does, if you're ranking his skills, strangely enough,
you probably have to go way down the list before
you get to pure coverage guy anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
At this point in his career, there was he saw
that against Seattle.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
There was a time when he was really elite at that,
but that time has come and gone.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Which is being a flat out coverage guy, I'm gonna
take you away, and doesn't exist, not anymore. And we
saw that come to fruition last night, because I think
some of what they were trying to do was let
him battle with Chase and then throw coverage elsewhere. But
even when they try to do that, and they actually
(09:32):
another shot that they showed from behind Flacco and This
is the one that Flacco I was referencing before when
he was sitting on the desk on the Amazon Prime video.
Uh recap with the eight million people that.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
They have every day?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Was it Whitworth, Gonzales, Richard and Ryan Fitzpatrick?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Correct? Did fits take a shirt off? He likes to
do that.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I didn't notice him to take a shirt off, But
I'm older than Fitzpatrick. He actually might be Flacco maybe
over the least right there with him neck and neck. Well,
that's not the first person I'd pick on that desk
to take their shirt off.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Witworth, is what you're saying, obviously, of course.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, But they were drawing up this play and you
remember it. We went for thirty seven yards where there
were these complaints already within like ten minutes after the
press conference, with Tomlin saying, when did you really double
cover Jalen excuse me, Jamar Chase, when did you really
cover Chase with two people? And when did you really
(10:33):
cover t Higgins with two people at the same time?
Because he insisted he did that. Well, they found it
right away. Is the Yoshi vas catch he connected for? Yeah,
for thirty seven yards. They drew that right back up
again and you could see it. I think Fitzpatrick was
the one that diagnosed it. It was two guys on tea,
two guys on Jamar, and then Yoshivas just ran right
down the middle. And Flacco said they were waiting for
it with baited breath, like he couldn't wait for them
(10:54):
to do it, And.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
When they had the right personnel on the field, when
they decided to do it, they just hit Yoshivas for
a big game.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I loved the Flacco quote from his postgame presser at
the podium, not at the Amazon Prime desk, where he
was like, you know, I'm still you know, a little confused.
Like sometimes the call was coming in and I was
like foggy. My brain wasn't putting together, like what the
formation was, and I'd break the huddle and I'd go
to the line and I'd be like, I don't think
we're in the right thing here. It's like, it was
like funny enough every time that happened to play hit, just.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Like every time we didn't know what the hell we
were doing, we took it for like fifteen yards. Well
that's great Steelers defense. That's really telling of how good
you are. Two things on that how can he overcome confusion?
And the Steelers are paralyzed by it all the time.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Like all every time there's the slightest curveball thrown at them, it's.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Like, what do we do?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
What do we do? What do we do?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
What do we do?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It's buffering, buffering, buffering, and they freeze? All right, So
there's that. I draw that conclusion from what he said.
I also draw this conclusion from what he said. It
doesn't really matter how much you know the playbook if
you're a veteran quarterback and alluding to what you said earlier,
if you're in there for two point five seconds, and
(12:00):
as a quarterback, that feels like a week and a
half because the game has just slowed down for you.
You just sit there and wait for two elite wide
receivers to get open, you know, Which is why I
always tend to bring the conversation back to what the
Steelers don't have, which is another wide receiver besides DK. Now,
the collective of the tight ends came through last night.
(12:21):
It did specifically Friarmuth. Friarmuth against the Cincinnati Bengals is
akin to Albert.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Poolholes against the Pirates.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
I mean, he or as Brian Metzer pointed out to
me on social media, Alexey Morozov against the New Jersey Devils,
he just tortures him every time. Now knowing the Steelers though,
he'll just be putting mothballs again.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Until the next time they will sit it.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
It comes to town in a few weeks, yes, correct,
whatever that is, I forget when that's a month from now,
about a month, okay, exactly, So Pat, just take a
month off, put yourself on the four week ir take
a break, and come back in great shape and put
up two hundred on them and four touchdowns.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Then. I mean like the collective of the tight ends
was good. It was good.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
And they treated Pat like a like a wide receiver too.
He had six targets better they were downfield targets.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
They have to be.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, And now the stats are a little bit skewed
because of the sixty eight yarder that he had, but whatever,
you can't just take that away from him.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It happened.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
It was a great play from Rodgers and from Friarmouth.
Last year they got in the shootout with Cincinnati and
Joe Burrow. Right, Russell Wilson throws for all those yards
and it's like, Wow, where did this offense come from?
Let's roll with that moving forward. Everybody thought that, except
for the Steelers' coaching staff. He was like, WHOA, wait
a minute, Let's not just go crazy and play offense
all of a sudden.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
That's not what we do here in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Okay, so you just saw Pat Farriarmouth this year be
a wide receiver too to DK Metcalf in this game.
Everybody's probably thinking, well, let's just carry that over into
green Bay. I guarantee the coaching staff's gonna do what
you said, though I'll be like, whoa, I mean, that's
just matchup specific again, since Green Bay is not a
Pat Friarmouth game.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Come on, guys, don't be stupid out there.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I want to come back and talk about one specific
thing with Pat Fryarmuth.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
When we return.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I want to talk about the offense in general, because
clearly this is a day where the defense is going
to be berated, and they should. But I don't want
to leave the offense off the hook entirely. We'll expand
on some of those thoughts when we come back. Tim
Ben's in for Mark Madden. This is one of five
nine the x iHeartRadio ALTERI presented my Capitol Law Sick.
(14:35):
We finished the last segment talking about the Steelers offense
a little bit and Pat Fryarmuth specifically, can I nip
one thing in the bud? Here? On Pat Fryarmuth and
the conversation from yesterday's game?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Do you know where I'm going with this?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Pat Fryarmuth should not have gone down and taken a
knee out of the goal line.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
It's the dumbest narrative.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Well, there's a lot of dumb narratives actually floating around
after that game, but that one.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Might be the worst of them. You've seen it too, right,
I've seen a couple of people bring it up.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
You've brought it to my attention, I think, but once
you do some digging, yeah, people, because I think it's
how effusive in praise they were over t Higgins on
the broadcast for doing that, and they should have been
because it was such a heady play that Steelers fans were.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Like, wow, I was an our player as smart as
that guy.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
But because he needed seven points not three, exact it's
simple math. It's not an apples to apples comp here,
and you're still gonna have to stop them at some
point or another. You're still gonna have to stop them
from getting three regardless, So whether based on what everybody's saying,
they're gonna score quick anyway, so you have to take.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Time off the clock.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Well, they're gonna score quick anyway then and you're not
gonna get the extra possession. So in a weird way,
it sort of worked out in that they got the
ball back from Cincinnati, but they just couldn't do anything
with it. And I don't know, I viewed people I
think right on that sort of the television commentary going
(16:03):
over the top with how much they praised Higgins, morphing
their brains about what took place with Friarmuth there, suggesting
that he should have gone down because I joked online
on social media that when they took over on that
scoring drive there were six minutes and fifty eight seconds left.
I joked that they would have a six minute scoring
(16:23):
drive and then allow the field goal with fifty eight
seconds left. I still don't know that I would have
been wrong, by the way, but because Friarmuth scored quickly,
there was a quick exchange of possessions again, and then
of course you saw what happened with the Bengals eventually
winning the game.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
And taking that approach with Fiarmuth should have gone down.
That is just a kind of sneaky way in my
mind to excuse the defense, which again was just crap
in a huge moment there. It's not illegal for them
to get off the field. It's not illegal for TJ.
Watt to have another big set.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
You've got one hundred and fifty eight million dollar defense.
You're not going to tell your tight end to try
to take more time off the clock so you can
strategically risk running four more plays to get into the
end zone.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Which is no guarantee. And just.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
How people would feel comfortable in just these five six
games of Aaron Rodgers at quarterback with the Steelers offense
to be like, we're good enough in the red zone
that you can toy around like that exactly, We'll get
it in no problem. Like come on, guys, Like that's
a little ridiculous. No team would think that way.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Maybe they could screw up another toush push. Maybe they
could do that.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Maybe ball gets tipped and gets interceptioned, intercepted in the
game's over, Zach Frazier shoots a snap overs Rodgers's head.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
There's so many things that could happen there.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
So it's sore influence to be like, well, you should
have played for the touchdown later and really started to
miss not a chip shot field goal from Evan McPherson
from twenty four yards out, although which when Higgins went down,
there was that part of me that says, I have
seen the Steelers win in Cincinnati in games where it
didn't seem at all possible, and I was just waiting
(17:58):
for the bad long snap, the bad hold, the shanked kick,
the Hayward block at the line of scrimmage, something like that.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
I was waiting for that, and the everybody's why didn't
he go down? He never should have gone down. It's
the Bengels against the Steelers. Just take the touchdown like
I was waiting for that.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
In in fact, I was waiting for vontez Berfect to
come running out of the tunnel and take over as
the long snapper.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Or Hey, ladies and.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Gentlemen, it's alumni night here in Cincinnati, here at Paul
Brown Stadium. We're gonna welcome back pac Man Jones, and
pac Man Jones is gonna be our ceremonial holder on
the game winning field goal.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Especially didn't see like a Jalen Ramsey try to snot
time that snap up on that that field goal and
then try to go way offside, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Like, what's the point try it? Give it a shot?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, but would you lose seconds on that? No, because
it's when the ball is touched with your foot, right,
I guess you're right.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
They would probably be thinking like, oh, well, did you
burn a couple seconds or what happens there?
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I would have been a touch shaman action that made
some sense as it turned out, because well, I don't
know if they put it takes a second, doesn't it
at least two for the ball to touch the foot
and go through the uprighting So but maybe maybe because
it came off the time out, I don't know. Regardless,
I just thought they could have maybe done a little
bit more of a riskier, you know, approach to try to.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
They've done that before.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Hayden did that and Hayden jumped off side three times
in a row, and then eventually they just awarded the
field goal away like it's never been done before.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
But they warn you after two if you do it again.
I thought that that's what would happen.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
That's what they did to the Commanders in the NFC
Championship game against the Tush Push. Remember, he just kept
losing it, just kept going off sides over and over
and over, like we're giving him a touchdown, Frankie Luvu
if you keep this up, buddy. I just thought that
they could have done that and kind of embraced what
you were saying there, that little Steelers bangles weirdness that
happens in games.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
But because they did what they did and they actually
threw a pass, got a completion and got a few
more yards, Rogers got the ball in the end zone.
I mean, like that was ridiculous. Apparently this the longest
ball has traveled in the NFL this year. Do you
think his arm hurts today, because I have a feeling
that he was, like, oh my god, Rodert Jones jumped
on his back, the guy with the bag back that
had to get worked one after week one. Just you
(20:05):
got the three hundred pound tackle jumping on his back
to celebrate, and then he had to wrench his to
throw the ball sixty seven yards of the air.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
I kind of forgot about Rogers's hail Mary Prowess. Like
I never really thought of it when he signed with
the Steelers and he's been here until that moment came
to Fruition and I was like, they actually have the
best quarterback ever. Maybe at this like this actually has
some chance better than most teams. I would say he's
got it down to a science too, Like he does
that like really like elongated roll out and kind of.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Like she can step into his heads up a little bit,
and then he's always real good about figuring out a
way where he can step into it, so and he
doesn't have to get a lot to step into because
he's so good at spinning the ball off platform or
without one hundred percent oomph on it and when he
really wants to.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
That's what it looks like.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I have a feeling though, that he was on that
team playing with like the ice pack like a pitcher
that just.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Through it should have made Robert Jones hold it there
for him, no tape on it. Yeah, Broderick, you're holding
this the whole way back. You probably think Broderick would
screw that up too, though. Do you want to get
into some more offensive things here? Should we take a
break and then come back and do that. I don't
think we should take a break, Okay. I wanted to
get into some more defense though. I mean, God, they
just sucked so bad. Okay, we could do both, because
(21:17):
I understand the trifecta is somewhat of so sperior.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
It's about the defense. All right, Well, there we go.
We'll do that.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
We'll get into the offensive foibles and there are some.
I'm not putting this game on the offense. It's ninety
percent on the defense. Let me give you the other
ten when we come back. You're on one five to nine.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
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Speaker 1 (22:17):
My dad pulled down, actually went over the Pat Fryarmouth
angle of conversation a few minutes ago. Tim and for
Mark Tommy Radio with me. We're gonna get to the
trifector where we get back to defense. But there are
a few offensive angles of dialogue that we have to have.
(22:39):
And I'm not trying to shift blame. I'm not doing
what you were suggesting before. Let's talk about Friarmth not
taking a knee, so we can leave the beloved Steelers
press defense, the delicate good.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
The last two weeks.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
There were some offensive things that are worthy of discussion,
and one of them is they don't do tricky well.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
And you're saying that as in regards to the Toush push.
Is that what you're saying? Toush push. They screwed us.
That should not be tricky. The flea flicker they screwed up.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
You know, they kind of did the over complicated screen
to Darnell Washington, anything that was intricate last night. They
kind of messed up the basics they did well.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Let's not throw screens to Darnell Washington five yards in
the backfield, regardless, like even if.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
That was perfect. You wanted to shake and bake.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
You want him to get in five yards anyway, that's
a dk play, Okay, do that to him somebody like that?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Please?
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Do you think they should have run Warren Moore? And
if so, when specifically, I think the entire game is
when specifically I think that was okay?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Like I've got a little bit of it.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I even had a little bit of a problem advancing
this in print because I knew I was going to
feel like a hypocrite if I did it, because I've
been there saying you can't just try to bang.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Your head into the wall with Warren and gain.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Well and hope it works. You have to be able
to take some shots down the field. But there was
no banging your head against the wall with those guys
in this game.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
And this ten yards down the field.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Right, you know, like against Cleveland for instance, like they
only averaged four yards. There's all this talked about how
great the run game was against Cleveland. It was okay,
he was good. Their averaged about four yards to carry
before the kneel downs against the Browns in this game,
like whatever they wanted. They got both running backs Chase Brown,
who by the Way was averaging thirty something yards per
(24:25):
game coming into that contest, like he was a third
or fourth line fantasy football draft guy. And everybody who's
taking him hates his guts, yes, absolutely hates him. Hates
the Bengals offensive line. And he looked like exactly the
running back that people were talking about in preseason fantasy drafts.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, and every time he touched it. But the sea's parted.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Well, it's exactly what people I think were thinking would
happen with Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Two.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
They're living in eleven personnel, right, and teams are gonna
have to go nickel, they're gonna have to go dime.
They wanted to get only two down linemen if they
could out there for the Steelers, and that's just easy
to run block, and then you're gonna have all these
big holes that you can drive trucks through. And it
was finally working for them in this game against the
Steelers because Flacco was a legitimate threat in the passing
game and you had to worry about him getting the
(25:13):
ball to those receivers when they were in eleven personnel
and they had three or four receivers on the field
spreading the Steelers out, so it worked exactly as I
think the Bengals had an envision it would work, where
they didn't really run the ball that much. Like Chase
Brown only had eleven carries in this game, but I
think that's always what they envisioned their offense being, is
like twelve carries from Brown averaging close to five yards
of carry. Now, in this game, you averaged ten yards
(25:35):
of carry, but you mentioned Brown to Herbstreet stet.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Whenever they ran on first and ten when you expect
the other team to run, they averaged eleven yards per.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
First and ten.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
They were blowing their doors off, And you mentioned Chase
Brown averaging like thirty yards per carried. The Bengals as
a whole, we're averaging fifty four yards as a team
entering into this game, and they got that total on
two different drives running the football in this game. Me
on the one drive with the interception that was called
back because DK touched him, and then the very next
play Chase Brown took at thirty seven yards right back
(26:06):
to the original point where the guy returned it, and
they matched their season total on that drive.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Rushing the ball.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Remind me to come back to the refs if we
don't get there, all right, But I do want to
say about the Warren angle to the offense, if there
was a time where they upon further review, and this
is I'll admit, this is hindsight. But they're supposed to
have foresight. We're allowed to have hindsight. They're the coaches,
were the radio hosts, and you're you're the fans. We're
allowed to have hindsight. They should have been running when
(26:36):
they through the interception.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
The deep ball to DK. They really uncharacteristic of Rogers.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Well, yeah, he just kind of threw it just for
the sake of it. It just felt like I'm rolling
the dice here, but you know, you didn't. I'm going
to hit on and.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
He didn't like eighteen and he didn't place it towards
the sideline, you know where if it was bad, it
would probably.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Just be a bad thro It was a bad idea.
It was the wrong look.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I can't remember if fitz I think it was Fitzpatrick
at halftime and made that point. It's like, well, it's
a nice play by the safety, but what else was
he gonna do. There's no like, was he just gonna
stand there and pick his nose like there was nobody else.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
To go, just DK running deep.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
He there's just.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
DK running deep, and he didn't have any other choices, Like,
I better help out the corner on this side of
the field, So he went over there and made the pick.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Was Rogers trying quick strike back because the Bengals just scored, You.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
See, that's but that's the point, like did we have
to turn that into a pinball game?
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Like they were up ten to nothing, Cincinnati just scored.
Did you really need to feel at that point like
you had to turn this into a track meet?
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Why not suck the air more again out of pay
Court Stadium and just run fifteen times down their throat
for a touch.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
You're still getting a touchdown back, why not take a
little bit more time.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
To do it?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
And like this is not that this is a different
argument than the friar Mouth should go down argument. You
can play with the clock in the first quarter or
the second.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Quarter, whatever it was.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
That is just physically, I would argue that's almost more
demoralizing than a quick strike home run right after the
Bengals scored, Like if you had the fans kind of
back into it, it's ten to seven, and then you
just kind of worked your way down the field with
Warren and just running and running and running, eating up
all that clock and then getting into the end zone.
They would just been like, well, there's just there's nothing
we're gonna do in this game. It was stupid that
(28:18):
they didn't run the ball there and then tim if
you noticed, they were down ten and then they were like, well,
let's run the ball a lot. And then that drive
that got the touchdown to make it twenty seven to
twenty four. It was mainly on the ground, so like
when they needed it, they sure leaned into it. That
was my biggest gripe with the offense was them getting
away from the run as much as they'd only twenty
(28:38):
carries in a game where you were averaging seven point
four yards as a team.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
One quick thing on the officials, then we'll break and
get to the trifecta.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
You can argue yay or nae.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Broderick Jones held that guy or he just kind of
went down with leverage. You can argue yay or nay.
It should have been pass interference on Chase here or
Ramsey there, tiki tak on which Penny Porter was flagged
four versus which penalty Porter got away with I'm not
really interested in adjudicating all of those. What struck me
(29:09):
about the officiating last night, and it pisses me off
to no end because of where we're going with this
is on the rip away from Metcalf.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
There was no call.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
They never said if it was a touch, a reception
or an interception.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
They never said anything.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
If you watch the body language of the official who
was on the sideline, assuming it was the side judge,
but whatever official was on the sideline there watching that play, did.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You see what he did?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Like he reached to grab the bean bag and then
didn't do it like he thought he saw it right
as it turns out like, But he's like, I didn't
really just see that, did I?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
He reached paralyzed by indecision, he went for his bean
bag and then remembered he should have gone for his
earpiece so he could hear what was coming in.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Well, that's what they did eventually, because at no point, Now,
maybe they did make a call in the field and
the prime crew was in replay showing it, but at
no point did anybody come on the on the field
and say it's an interception. At no point did the
official get on a microphone and say it's a reception.
It's being reviewed, like we had no indication it was
(30:12):
being looked at for about two minutes. And when they
say every time you hear the ref say after discussion,
you know what that means. You know, that means that
New York has gotten in their head, made the call
for them and is reminding them to say after discussion,
meaning on the field, illusion alive. Yes, they're not doing
(30:33):
this as puppets from New York. This is us talking
it out here like guys, you know, whenever the refs
say after discussion, that's like when you're having a quasi
near argument with someone who say no offense, but obviously
you mean a fence, Like it's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
That preamble is just a tip off to what's coming.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Would you rather come out and be like, my boss
just told me we were wrong there from New York,
so we're gonna change this.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
You have to, especially in certain situations when it's not
a turnover that's in play, or when it's not a
touchdown that's in play, or under two minutes where they
can automatically involve themselves.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
You got to make a call.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
So the other team knows that they're gonna challenge or
not because there's risk to a change.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
The Bengals lost a challenge last night.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
A stupid challenge that's caught exactly, but that's costly. So
like this, this mystical we can buzz in whenever we want.
It breaks the rules of how you the mechanism of
the red flag.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
It absolutely does.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Can I go on a little bit of a ran
about officials too, if we have a time, we have
a little bit of time. It's only gonna take me
like thirty seconds. The toush push, Mason McCormick one thousand
percent was a false start. Not even gonna dispute that
right call. You're gonna say that the Eagles ever.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Call it against Philly. I said this last night on Twitter.
You're not wrong, But the amount of people that just
seized on that, like, oh my god, because it's so
obvious they always false start on their toush push.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
You could even look at the game last night.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
If you're talking about offensive lineman false starting, the tackles,
all fall starting for the Bengals, the.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Whole thing jump early. Yes, there is.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
By the way, I don't think McCormick was the one
that on the to push started first.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
This McCormick got off better.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
That happens on almost every Eagles tush push and it
goes uncalled every time. I think refs are kind of
paralyzed because this is the tush push team, right, this
is their thing.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
They do it perfectly. I'll tell you why they do it.
I'll tell you why that happens. That happens because they're
watching the defense against Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
But when it's the other teams, they're like, let's see
how they're doing it.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Let's see if they're doing it right, because you know,
the Eagles have mastered getting around that. But I think
they are so perplexed when it comes to trying to
figure out what the defense is doing. Kind of like
we just talked about the guy that from Washington, we
kept trying to breath, yea. You know, they are watching
the defense so intently to see how they're gonna stop it,
(32:52):
if they're gonna do something illegal to stop it. That
the Eagles can do things illegal to get it, and
they're not noticing. I would want to be the ref
though that has the balls right to big play fourth
and one, Eagles get it, throw that flag, in with
some Gustard really just fly yes, faalse start and be
right about it too, right, like go to replay review
(33:13):
and everybody in America at home sees the guard move
forward first, be right about it. Absolutely call it. I
would crave that moment. I would, especially if it's Lane Johnson.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
I would be especially if it's looking for that moment
so badly if I was a ref, because you know,
they hear the noise, like they know that people are
on them about this, so I would be looking for that.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
But I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
They just default into the defense is going to do
something illegal, and I better make sure I adjudicate it.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
That's so blatant about it.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Hurts moves first, sometimes before the ball even get it,
just pushes the center forward.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
The center's like I'll just hold on to it.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
A million bodies handed to them and then yeah, it's
it is blatant.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
You're right, but they're a bigger fish to fry than
that last night.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
And also, don't do the touch push anymore, Steelers, because you,
like almost every other team the NFL, suck at it,
and you did fall start and that was the right call.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
It was the right call exactly all right trifecta when
we come back one oh.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Five nine the X as your shot at X drug cash.
See what I did there.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Thirteen times a day, nine am through nine pm, d
X will give you the keyword at the top of
every hour enterady WXDX dot com and you could win
one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
With that much money, you could buy like ten coffees.
You know what.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
I was homeschooled. I'm not good at mouth. Listen all
day for your chance. Had some X drug Cash on
one oh five to.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Nine the X from the Dollar Energy Fund Weather Center.
This report is sponsored by Fox One.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
It's gotta be a nice day mostly sunning high of
sixty five with Mark Madden and Tom Offerman on one
oh five nine VX.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Just before the top of the three o'clock hour, Tommy Radio,
what do we have for the trifect today?
Speaker 3 (34:49):
For today's triffect to ten, We're gonna go with my
three least valuable players on a Steelers defense.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Only three, just as a whole.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I was just gonna say, just as a whole was
pretty least valuable in that game. Number three for me,
I'm gonna go with Patrick Queen. He was just invisible
out there the entire time. And I was so encouraged
in the previous weeks how he was popping on the
television copy, you know what I mean, just seeing number
six flying all over the field like a middle linebacker
should look, making a lot of impact.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
He did nothing against Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
He might as well have taken the night off number
two For me, I'm gonna go a little cheat here.
I'm gonna cheat a little bit here. I'm gonna go
Herbig and wat together. But emphasis on Nick Herbig. After
so much noise about him being such a great pass rusher,
he only plays thirty eight percent of the snaps and
then just has zero impact when he's out there anyway.
But the number one least valuable player for that defense
(35:42):
I think has to be Jalen Ramsey. And that's ironic
because I think he could have had a strong case
heading into that game for being the most valuable player
for the Steelers defense this season. But he was cooked
like a Christmas goose all night by Jamar Chase.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Wow, you went through that and didn't mention what huh?
I said? Herbig and Wan they share number two? You
share number two?
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Okay? I think I think you're cheating. You are cheating.
I did cheat. I said that, Yeah, you are listening
to me, Well I was.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I was listening when you said her big, and then
I thought, well, well that's weird.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Why did he say her big? I tuned out on
the Watt part. That's my bad.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
I mean what was bad too. He did have that
half a sack with him. You should have split it
three ways then and then put high Smith in there.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, but he's kind of back up in my mind now.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
I think her big Athough didn't dictate that, yeah, which
I think is maybe another air from the coaching staff.
It's not like high Smith was out there and helping
him the run defense, right. Tim wasn't like he was
his prowess was needed out there to slow chase Brown down.
But what definitely deserves some blame here. I mean, he
had that one play and then that was it. Just
like I said with Patrick Queen, you forgot he even
(36:43):
made the trip to Cincinnati. Through long stretches of that game.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
It's weird in a sense that Cole Holcombe was more visible,
and that was probably a bad thing based on how
he became visible.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
It was a terrible game for all the inside linebackers
and Peyton Wilson had six taps. He's just you know,
he was just okay. And he was beaten coverage a
couple of times as well. So I mean it looked
like there was progress being made by the inside backers
and that just all went right down the toilet in
this game against Cincinnati was one of their worst games
as a unit all year.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
You know, it wasn't very.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Visible either, and had been ever since he got into
the lineup.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Was Harmon. Yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
He thought Harmon had his least impactful performance and.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
There was a weakness with the guards in Cincinnati, theoretically
Reisner and the Rivers, the rookie. I mean, it was
not a strong interior. It was not a strong offensive
line in general. And Tim we said on countdown this week,
we were like, credit to the Steelers pass rush. They're
doing this against weak offensive lines. And that's not always
the case. We sometimes prognosticate, oh, this is a terrible
(37:48):
matchup for the opposing team. Their line stinks, and then
they go out and they shut down the Steelers pass rush.
That happened this week against Cincinnati. That line stinks, but
they did a good job against Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
This seems to be a recur theme where you feel
like the Steelers have just this overwhelming advantage over the
offensive line. To your point, and I've raised that time
and time and time again, and then we walk away
from it.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
And I don't know why we.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Don't focus on that more, because, like Matt Williamson points out,
all the time, you usually walk into a game where
the defensive front is better than the offensive front. And
if it's as decidedly advantageous for the Steelers as it
has been, more games should look like Minnesota and Cleveland,
and not enough.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Do I know. It's a bit bizarre.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
And then conversely, when you see like the Lane Johnson's
of the world come in or a really good matchup
for the opposing team as far as neutralizing the Steelers
pass russes concerned, almost like the Steelers step up in
those instances, and then the pass rush is dominant in
those aspects too, So it's really weird. It's hard to
figure out what the reason would be there. I'd also
(38:53):
like to throw a little honorable mention as far as
the least valuable players is concerned to Darius Slay last night,
because my god, anytime he found himself on Chase Flacco
went right there.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
I want to give you credit for something I did
listen to, even if I didn't listen to the wat
part of these splitting and cheating for number two in
the trifecta, I thought you might have made the best
point of anybody I heard this week.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Wow, I promise you it was an accident.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I think it was because you didn't write it down.
I think you were just kind of spitballing and it
came out of your mouth. But it was a great
point that Tomlin probably worked himself into an oblivion more
with Flacco being traded from Cincinnati to Cleveland than he
will with Josh Allen when they played the Bills in
(39:41):
a couple of weeks, or you know, any of the
next three teams like Herbert with the LA Chargers, or
Love This Sunday, Love This Sunday, Danny Dimes in between
with the Colts, like these teams that are playoff teams,
or Josh Allen, who was an MVP candidate again this year,
like we will come at him with a ton of
(40:03):
questions about like how do you stop Josh Allen? How
do you slow down justin Herbert with his wide receivers,
and he'll make it sound like we're the idiots for asking.
You know, but the Joe Flacco thing, where everybody else
thought it was no big deal, and why is he
turning it into this massive talking point with the Andrew
Berry quote. He's more bugged out about Flacco switching teams
(40:25):
than he is about facing MVP candidates. There's no doubt
about that.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
And just thinking the other quarterback was healthy named Joe,
who's usually there for Cincinnati, it would have gone how
you're illustrating it, well.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yes, I bet you having the case like he would
have been.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
We've seen Joe Burrow before, we know what he has,
We respect him a great deal, we know how good
he is. But this is not new to us. This
is AFC North football. There's a lot of advanced intimate
knowledge between the teams. It's exactly how the SoundBite would
have sounded. But Flacco moves teams and he just melts.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
But nobody fits what you just said, that faux SoundBite
which sounds so real that would come out of my
Tomlin's mouth.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
No one fits that description like Joe Flacco.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Joe Flacco looked like Joe Montana, dipped in Joe Burrow
and rolled in Joe Namath last night. That's how he
performed against the Steelers. In thirty seconds, we'll talk about
everything that went wrong last night, everything that went wrong
last night, and if you want to get a head
start on at eight three, three, four, one, two ninety
(41:26):
nine thirty nine, you.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Can call now and we'll get into it.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
I'm going to air my grievances about the Pittsburgh Steelers,
just like I do on the trip after every game
for the Steelers. You and I can do it together
because there is a lot to air, as the Steelers
aired against Cincinnati one oh five nine.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
The X Now it's your chance to win one thousand
dollars
The man who usually hosts this show, Mark Madden. In
case you're curious and confused, I'm Tim Ben's in for Mark.
Mark Offin says that Mike Tomlin would rather be right
than win. Well, last night, Tomlin was proven right about
Joe Flacco, and he's sure as hell didn't win. In fact,
(00:25):
as the hours get further and further away from that
thirty three to thirty one defeat in Cincinnati, I'm starting
to wonder if Tomlin ended up losing and being right
ironically all at the same time and hurting his team's
chances of winning as a net result. Expanded covers of
The Mark Madden Show is backed by the personal injury
(00:46):
experts Shnderovitch, Shnderovitch and Fishman.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
They've got your back, not your wallet.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
And if you bet on the Steelers last night, you
are a lot lighter in the wallet.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And I think you're pretty light.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
In the head, because if you couldn't see at the
very least a ball breaking, headbanging, hand ringing, tooth gnashing victory,
if you couldn't forecast at least that probably happening for
the Steelers in Cincinnati, then you just haven't been paying attention.
To how the Steelers operate within the division, on the road,
(01:19):
Thursday Night Football, or basically at all in the entire
Tomlin era. As soon as it starts to look really
really good, you start to feel really really bad. And
I don't know how you can feel good about what
you saw last night, not just for one night, but
for moving forward as well.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Tommy Radio joins me.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Right now, tom let's just get right into it, because,
as I talked about with Mike Decorsi on my Friday
Football show on the Tribli Facebook stream and on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I wrote about it there too.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I feel like this whole Mike Tomlin obsession with Joe
Flacco that coalesced with his comments about Andrew Berry during
his Monday press conference this week. The way that that
defense played last night, it's almost like Tomlin's discussion about
Flacco manifested the defensive result that we saw, or, if
(02:19):
you want to look at it a different way, the
defense's inability to string together three good games manifested what
Tomlin was worried about into being right. I don't know
how else to look at it. I'm just so obsessed
on that one point. It's like Tomlin spoke Thursday Night's
(02:39):
reality Tomlin spoke Thursday Night's result into happening on Monday.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Am I wrong about that? No, You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
It's honestly hilarious that it played out this way, that
Mike Tomlin showed his hand a little bit, a little
bit of fear when it comes to Joe Flacco being
the quarterback, and then Flacco went out and delivered what
Mike Tomlin feared. And I don't I haven't seen the
exact number yet, but it felt to me like they
were blitzing a little bit less right.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
It felt to me like they.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Were kind of going into more of a conservative They're
gonna get the ball out quick, so let's emphasize coverage
as opposed to pressure. Just picked them apart. That's kind
of the same thing that happened in the Colts game
last year with Joe Flacco.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Well, if you're gonna do that, then why have Nick
Herbig only played thirty eight percent of the snap? So
unless we're going to find out that he's hurt, which
we can't rule that out with his history, but.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
That's my point.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's like, why did you get away from that chaotic
pass rush that has really been allowing your defense to
play elite because of that. It all starts there. And
again I'm not an idiot. I know Flaco was getting
It was like two point four to four seconds. I
think I saw was this time to throw the ball?
I mean, you can still get to a quarterback in
that amount of time more often than this.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Well, then your grand experiment in the secondary has failed
because that this game is why it was put together,
and that was a failure.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
And do you think they were leaning on that a
little bit too, where it was like, we don't need
to supply the pass rush and create that chaos. We
can emphasize help in coverage and Flacco will just be
lost because our corners are good anyway, and they'll shut
down those receivers. I wonder if that's what they went
into the game thinking. And I see people really complaining
a lot about adjustment. So how do you let Chase
(04:20):
keep burning you? How come you couldn't adjust in the secondary?
Oh they did. I mean they threw every coverage they
possibly could think of. At the Bengals Double Flo talked
about it. Yeah, on the post games. They were changing
it all up. They were trying different things, and none
of it was working. Which is kind of scarier when
you think about it, that it wasn't like a coaching thing.
It was just the players out there getting cooked. But
I will say I think they should have adjusted at
(04:41):
halftime to more of a let's send six or seven
at Flacco. You know, let's put our guys on an island.
It's a little tenuous with how good Chase was in
that first half, but we got to get Flacco off
the spot. I mean, he's just one two step and
hits easy throws for him.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
As Rogers is proving behind the Steelers offensive line. And
by the way, the best tackle of the night was
Broderick Jones on Aaron Rodgers was celebrating going to the sideline.
At least Broderick Jones made his impact. Note, Well, he
had as many tackles as TJ. Watt, so give him
credit for that. And actually I think DK Metcalf literally
did have more tackles than TJ. Watt on the two
(05:16):
interception picks. But what Rogers has proven is that you
can be accurate in two point five seconds and move
an offense and score beyond what your usual yardage totals indicate.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I've gone through the numbers with you.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I don't know how many times where they're twenty ninth,
thirty first, twenty fifth, twenty seventh, whatever in the league
and rushing, passing in total yards, and then they are
right in the middle of the pack an average team
in the NFL in scoring at like twenty four points
per game, which actually went up last night.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So he's proven that.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
But there's a big difference between I can be accurate,
get the ball out on time, and hit my guy
how I want to hit my guy when like you're saying,
bring six or seven, cover with everybody else who's ever left,
even if you gotta throw a safety on somebody. Yes,
and if the pass rush is getting there in one
point five, he's got to get rid of it even quicker.
(06:12):
And maybe it's not accurate, maybe it does go over
the receiver's head, or it bounces, or it gets picked off.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
If a quarterback sees.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
The house coming, he's not gonna be comfortable enough to
even wait two point five.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
He's gonna get it out quicker than that.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So yes, I agree with you, But like I can't
remember which quarter it was, and I want to say
it was in the second quarter. I might be wrong
on that, but they had a shot from behind Flaco
for an end zone camera behind Flacco, and they showed
kind of like a delayed blitz that the Steelers were
running where Elliott came in between the gap of the
(06:50):
left guard and the left tackle, so the left side
of the offensive line. He's attacking the left side of
the offensive line from the defense's right side.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
He comes in, he blitzes.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
And then Queen sort of runs this delay blitz behind it,
like he was kind of showing coverage and then blitzing
in behind it. But it was way too late and
way too long.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Not necessary. Against Joe, it was.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Almost like, Okay, he was gonna read wherever they picked
up Elliott, he was gonna come in from the other hole.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I like that against the quarterbacks. He got rid of
the ball, That's what I'm saying. I like that against
the quarterback, like three seconds holding onto the ball, Dylan Gabriel,
he's looking at it through his progressions. Yeah, exactly. That's
not gonna work against Joe Flacco. He's one read to read.
I gotta get rid of this thing. And that's all
he was thinking about in that game. And every time
it was usually just one read and I'm gonna throw
it to that one read Jamar Chase, whether he's open
or not, twenty three targets. I still can't get over that.
(07:40):
He was just Chase Chase, Chase Chase every single time.
And how many times do you think he really was open.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
On those twenty three targets? Probably like half of them. No, no, no, no,
I think he was open more than that.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Oh okay, see, I bet she was probably open thirty
or thirty five times. But T was open more on
given plays or Yoshi vas was open more on.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
The Joey Porter Junior. Your thing with t Higgins just
does not work. Last year he got like eighteen defensive
pass interferences. He got a couple more in this game.
He got cooked a couple times in this game. Like
they love this idea of Joey's gonna take te Higgins out.
I like that size matchup, it just does not work.
Higgins eats him for lunch.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
One thing I worried about going into this game and
it was proven true, was it does look like Jalen
Ramsey is a great piece to have on the defense.
He is great at blitzing and creating chaos. He can
play multiple positions. He's a tough look and a tough matchup.
You don't know exactly what kind of chess piece you're
(08:37):
dealing with here.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Is he a rook? Is he a knight? Is he
a queen? Is he a king?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
You know, like, you don't know what you're looking at
necessarily when you stare across and you see what Ramsey
is doing. There's a little polamalu element to all of that.
So it is intriguing in that regard. But the one
thing he does, if you're ranking his skills, strangely enough,
you probably have to go way down the list before
you get to pure coverage guy anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
At this point in his career, there was he saw
that against Seattle.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
There was a time when he was really elite at that,
but that time has come and gone.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Which is being a flat out coverage guy, I'm gonna
take you away, and doesn't exist, not anymore. And we
saw that come to fruition last night, because I think
some of what they were trying to do was let
him battle with Chase and then throw coverage elsewhere. But
even when they try to do that, and they actually
(09:32):
another shot that they showed from behind Flacco and This
is the one that Flacco I was referencing before when
he was sitting on the desk on the Amazon Prime video.
Uh recap with the eight million people that.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
They have every day?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Was it Whitworth, Gonzales, Richard and Ryan Fitzpatrick?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Correct? Did fits take a shirt off? He likes to
do that.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I didn't notice him to take a shirt off, But
I'm older than Fitzpatrick. He actually might be Flacco maybe
over the least right there with him neck and neck. Well,
that's not the first person I'd pick on that desk
to take their shirt off.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Witworth, is what you're saying, obviously, of course.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, But they were drawing up this play and you
remember it. We went for thirty seven yards where there
were these complaints already within like ten minutes after the
press conference, with Tomlin saying, when did you really double
cover Jalen excuse me, Jamar Chase, when did you really
cover Chase with two people? And when did you really
(10:33):
cover t Higgins with two people at the same time?
Because he insisted he did that. Well, they found it
right away. Is the Yoshi vas catch he connected for? Yeah,
for thirty seven yards. They drew that right back up
again and you could see it. I think Fitzpatrick was
the one that diagnosed it. It was two guys on tea,
two guys on Jamar, and then Yoshivas just ran right
down the middle. And Flacco said they were waiting for
it with baited breath, like he couldn't wait for them
(10:54):
to do it, And.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
When they had the right personnel on the field, when
they decided to do it, they just hit Yoshivas for
a big game.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I loved the Flacco quote from his postgame presser at
the podium, not at the Amazon Prime desk, where he
was like, you know, I'm still you know, a little confused.
Like sometimes the call was coming in and I was
like foggy. My brain wasn't putting together, like what the
formation was, and I'd break the huddle and I'd go
to the line and I'd be like, I don't think
we're in the right thing here. It's like, it was
like funny enough every time that happened to play hit, just.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Like every time we didn't know what the hell we
were doing, we took it for like fifteen yards. Well
that's great Steelers defense. That's really telling of how good
you are. Two things on that how can he overcome confusion?
And the Steelers are paralyzed by it all the time.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Like all every time there's the slightest curveball thrown at them, it's.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Like, what do we do?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
What do we do? What do we do?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
What do we do?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It's buffering, buffering, buffering, and they freeze? All right, So
there's that. I draw that conclusion from what he said.
I also draw this conclusion from what he said. It
doesn't really matter how much you know the playbook if
you're a veteran quarterback and alluding to what you said earlier,
if you're in there for two point five seconds, and
(12:00):
as a quarterback, that feels like a week and a
half because the game has just slowed down for you.
You just sit there and wait for two elite wide
receivers to get open, you know, Which is why I
always tend to bring the conversation back to what the
Steelers don't have, which is another wide receiver besides DK. Now,
the collective of the tight ends came through last night.
(12:21):
It did specifically Friarmuth. Friarmuth against the Cincinnati Bengals is
akin to Albert.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Poolholes against the Pirates.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
I mean, he or as Brian Metzer pointed out to
me on social media, Alexey Morozov against the New Jersey Devils,
he just tortures him every time. Now knowing the Steelers though,
he'll just be putting mothballs again.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Until the next time they will sit it.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
It comes to town in a few weeks, yes, correct,
whatever that is, I forget when that's a month from now,
about a month, okay, exactly, So Pat, just take a
month off, put yourself on the four week ir take
a break, and come back in great shape and put
up two hundred on them and four touchdowns.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Then. I mean like the collective of the tight ends
was good. It was good.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
And they treated Pat like a like a wide receiver too.
He had six targets better they were downfield targets.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
They have to be.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, And now the stats are a little bit skewed
because of the sixty eight yarder that he had, but whatever,
you can't just take that away from him.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It happened.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
It was a great play from Rodgers and from Friarmouth.
Last year they got in the shootout with Cincinnati and
Joe Burrow. Right, Russell Wilson throws for all those yards
and it's like, Wow, where did this offense come from?
Let's roll with that moving forward. Everybody thought that, except
for the Steelers' coaching staff. He was like, WHOA, wait
a minute, Let's not just go crazy and play offense
all of a sudden.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
That's not what we do here in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Okay, so you just saw Pat Farriarmouth this year be
a wide receiver too to DK Metcalf in this game.
Everybody's probably thinking, well, let's just carry that over into
green Bay. I guarantee the coaching staff's gonna do what
you said, though I'll be like, whoa, I mean, that's
just matchup specific again, since Green Bay is not a
Pat Friarmouth game.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Come on, guys, don't be stupid out there.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I want to come back and talk about one specific
thing with Pat Fryarmuth.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
When we return.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I want to talk about the offense in general, because
clearly this is a day where the defense is going
to be berated, and they should. But I don't want
to leave the offense off the hook entirely. We'll expand
on some of those thoughts when we come back. Tim
Ben's in for Mark Madden. This is one of five
nine the x iHeartRadio ALTERI presented my Capitol Law Sick.
(14:35):
We finished the last segment talking about the Steelers offense
a little bit and Pat Fryarmuth specifically, can I nip
one thing in the bud? Here? On Pat Fryarmuth and
the conversation from yesterday's game?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Do you know where I'm going with this?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Pat Fryarmuth should not have gone down and taken a
knee out of the goal line.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
It's the dumbest narrative.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Well, there's a lot of dumb narratives actually floating around
after that game, but that one.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Might be the worst of them. You've seen it too, right,
I've seen a couple of people bring it up.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
You've brought it to my attention, I think, but once
you do some digging, yeah, people, because I think it's
how effusive in praise they were over t Higgins on
the broadcast for doing that, and they should have been
because it was such a heady play that Steelers fans were.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Like, wow, I was an our player as smart as
that guy.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
But because he needed seven points not three, exact it's
simple math. It's not an apples to apples comp here,
and you're still gonna have to stop them at some
point or another. You're still gonna have to stop them
from getting three regardless, So whether based on what everybody's saying,
they're gonna score quick anyway, so you have to take.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Time off the clock.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Well, they're gonna score quick anyway then and you're not
gonna get the extra possession. So in a weird way,
it sort of worked out in that they got the
ball back from Cincinnati, but they just couldn't do anything
with it. And I don't know, I viewed people I
think right on that sort of the television commentary going
(16:03):
over the top with how much they praised Higgins, morphing
their brains about what took place with Friarmuth there, suggesting
that he should have gone down because I joked online
on social media that when they took over on that
scoring drive there were six minutes and fifty eight seconds left.
I joked that they would have a six minute scoring
(16:23):
drive and then allow the field goal with fifty eight
seconds left. I still don't know that I would have
been wrong, by the way, but because Friarmuth scored quickly,
there was a quick exchange of possessions again, and then
of course you saw what happened with the Bengals eventually
winning the game.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
And taking that approach with Fiarmuth should have gone down.
That is just a kind of sneaky way in my
mind to excuse the defense, which again was just crap
in a huge moment there. It's not illegal for them
to get off the field. It's not illegal for TJ.
Watt to have another big set.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
You've got one hundred and fifty eight million dollar defense.
You're not going to tell your tight end to try
to take more time off the clock so you can
strategically risk running four more plays to get into the
end zone.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Which is no guarantee. And just.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
How people would feel comfortable in just these five six
games of Aaron Rodgers at quarterback with the Steelers offense
to be like, we're good enough in the red zone
that you can toy around like that exactly, We'll get
it in no problem. Like come on, guys, Like that's
a little ridiculous. No team would think that way.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Maybe they could screw up another toush push. Maybe they
could do that.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Maybe ball gets tipped and gets interceptioned, intercepted in the
game's over, Zach Frazier shoots a snap overs Rodgers's head.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
There's so many things that could happen there.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
So it's sore influence to be like, well, you should
have played for the touchdown later and really started to
miss not a chip shot field goal from Evan McPherson
from twenty four yards out, although which when Higgins went down,
there was that part of me that says, I have
seen the Steelers win in Cincinnati in games where it
didn't seem at all possible, and I was just waiting
(17:58):
for the bad long snap, the bad hold, the shanked kick,
the Hayward block at the line of scrimmage, something like that.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
I was waiting for that, and the everybody's why didn't
he go down? He never should have gone down. It's
the Bengels against the Steelers. Just take the touchdown like
I was waiting for that.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
In in fact, I was waiting for vontez Berfect to
come running out of the tunnel and take over as
the long snapper.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Or Hey, ladies and.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Gentlemen, it's alumni night here in Cincinnati, here at Paul
Brown Stadium. We're gonna welcome back pac Man Jones, and
pac Man Jones is gonna be our ceremonial holder on
the game winning field goal.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Especially didn't see like a Jalen Ramsey try to snot
time that snap up on that that field goal and
then try to go way offside, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Like, what's the point try it? Give it a shot?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, but would you lose seconds on that? No, because
it's when the ball is touched with your foot, right,
I guess you're right.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
They would probably be thinking like, oh, well, did you
burn a couple seconds or what happens there?
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I would have been a touch shaman action that made
some sense as it turned out, because well, I don't
know if they put it takes a second, doesn't it
at least two for the ball to touch the foot
and go through the uprighting So but maybe maybe because
it came off the time out, I don't know. Regardless,
I just thought they could have maybe done a little
bit more of a riskier, you know, approach to try to.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
They've done that before.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Hayden did that and Hayden jumped off side three times
in a row, and then eventually they just awarded the
field goal away like it's never been done before.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
But they warn you after two if you do it again.
I thought that that's what would happen.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
That's what they did to the Commanders in the NFC
Championship game against the Tush Push. Remember, he just kept
losing it, just kept going off sides over and over
and over, like we're giving him a touchdown, Frankie Luvu
if you keep this up, buddy. I just thought that
they could have done that and kind of embraced what
you were saying there, that little Steelers bangles weirdness that
happens in games.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
But because they did what they did and they actually
threw a pass, got a completion and got a few
more yards, Rogers got the ball in the end zone.
I mean, like that was ridiculous. Apparently this the longest
ball has traveled in the NFL this year. Do you
think his arm hurts today, because I have a feeling
that he was, like, oh my god, Rodert Jones jumped
on his back, the guy with the bag back that
had to get worked one after week one. Just you
(20:05):
got the three hundred pound tackle jumping on his back
to celebrate, and then he had to wrench his to
throw the ball sixty seven yards of the air.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
I kind of forgot about Rogers's hail Mary Prowess. Like
I never really thought of it when he signed with
the Steelers and he's been here until that moment came
to Fruition and I was like, they actually have the
best quarterback ever. Maybe at this like this actually has
some chance better than most teams. I would say he's
got it down to a science too, Like he does
that like really like elongated roll out and kind of.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Like she can step into his heads up a little bit,
and then he's always real good about figuring out a
way where he can step into it, so and he
doesn't have to get a lot to step into because
he's so good at spinning the ball off platform or
without one hundred percent oomph on it and when he
really wants to.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
That's what it looks like.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I have a feeling though, that he was on that
team playing with like the ice pack like a pitcher
that just.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Through it should have made Robert Jones hold it there
for him, no tape on it. Yeah, Broderick, you're holding
this the whole way back. You probably think Broderick would
screw that up too, though. Do you want to get
into some more offensive things here? Should we take a
break and then come back and do that. I don't
think we should take a break, Okay. I wanted to
get into some more defense though. I mean, God, they
just sucked so bad. Okay, we could do both, because
(21:17):
I understand the trifecta is somewhat of so sperior.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
It's about the defense. All right, Well, there we go.
We'll do that.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
We'll get into the offensive foibles and there are some.
I'm not putting this game on the offense. It's ninety
percent on the defense. Let me give you the other
ten when we come back. You're on one five to nine.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
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Speaker 4 (21:46):
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Speaker 2 (21:50):
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Speaker 4 (21:53):
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door event and dressing your Halloween to score prizes.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
All night. Tickets are on sale now at Gateway Clipper
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Speaker 4 (22:06):
The Exes wait on the Gateway Clipper sponsored by Disaster
Restoration Services we'll see you October.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
My dad pulled down, actually went over the Pat Fryarmouth
angle of conversation a few minutes ago. Tim and for
Mark Tommy Radio with me. We're gonna get to the
trifector where we get back to defense. But there are
a few offensive angles of dialogue that we have to have.
(22:39):
And I'm not trying to shift blame. I'm not doing
what you were suggesting before. Let's talk about Friarmth not
taking a knee, so we can leave the beloved Steelers
press defense, the delicate good.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
The last two weeks.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
There were some offensive things that are worthy of discussion,
and one of them is they don't do tricky well.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
And you're saying that as in regards to the Toush push.
Is that what you're saying? Toush push. They screwed us.
That should not be tricky. The flea flicker they screwed up.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
You know, they kind of did the over complicated screen
to Darnell Washington, anything that was intricate last night. They
kind of messed up the basics they did well.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Let's not throw screens to Darnell Washington five yards in
the backfield, regardless, like even if.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
That was perfect. You wanted to shake and bake.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
You want him to get in five yards anyway, that's
a dk play, Okay, do that to him somebody like that?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Please?
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Do you think they should have run Warren Moore? And
if so, when specifically, I think the entire game is
when specifically I think that was okay?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Like I've got a little bit of it.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I even had a little bit of a problem advancing
this in print because I knew I was going to
feel like a hypocrite if I did it, because I've
been there saying you can't just try to bang.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Your head into the wall with Warren and gain.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Well and hope it works. You have to be able
to take some shots down the field. But there was
no banging your head against the wall with those guys
in this game.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
And this ten yards down the field.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Right, you know, like against Cleveland for instance, like they
only averaged four yards. There's all this talked about how
great the run game was against Cleveland. It was okay,
he was good. Their averaged about four yards to carry
before the kneel downs against the Browns in this game,
like whatever they wanted. They got both running backs Chase Brown,
who by the Way was averaging thirty something yards per
(24:25):
game coming into that contest, like he was a third
or fourth line fantasy football draft guy. And everybody who's
taking him hates his guts, yes, absolutely hates him. Hates
the Bengals offensive line. And he looked like exactly the
running back that people were talking about in preseason fantasy drafts.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, and every time he touched it. But the sea's parted.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Well, it's exactly what people I think were thinking would
happen with Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Two.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
They're living in eleven personnel, right, and teams are gonna
have to go nickel, they're gonna have to go dime.
They wanted to get only two down linemen if they
could out there for the Steelers, and that's just easy
to run block, and then you're gonna have all these
big holes that you can drive trucks through. And it
was finally working for them in this game against the
Steelers because Flacco was a legitimate threat in the passing
game and you had to worry about him getting the
(25:13):
ball to those receivers when they were in eleven personnel
and they had three or four receivers on the field
spreading the Steelers out, so it worked exactly as I
think the Bengals had an envision it would work, where
they didn't really run the ball that much. Like Chase
Brown only had eleven carries in this game, but I
think that's always what they envisioned their offense being, is
like twelve carries from Brown averaging close to five yards
of carry. Now, in this game, you averaged ten yards
(25:35):
of carry, but you mentioned Brown to Herbstreet stet.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Whenever they ran on first and ten when you expect
the other team to run, they averaged eleven yards per.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
First and ten.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
They were blowing their doors off, And you mentioned Chase
Brown averaging like thirty yards per carried. The Bengals as
a whole, we're averaging fifty four yards as a team
entering into this game, and they got that total on
two different drives running the football in this game. Me
on the one drive with the interception that was called
back because DK touched him, and then the very next
play Chase Brown took at thirty seven yards right back
(26:06):
to the original point where the guy returned it, and
they matched their season total on that drive.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Rushing the ball.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Remind me to come back to the refs if we
don't get there, all right, But I do want to
say about the Warren angle to the offense, if there
was a time where they upon further review, and this
is I'll admit, this is hindsight. But they're supposed to
have foresight. We're allowed to have hindsight. They're the coaches,
were the radio hosts, and you're you're the fans. We're
allowed to have hindsight. They should have been running when
(26:36):
they through the interception.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
The deep ball to DK. They really uncharacteristic of Rogers.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Well, yeah, he just kind of threw it just for
the sake of it. It just felt like I'm rolling
the dice here, but you know, you didn't. I'm going
to hit on and.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
He didn't like eighteen and he didn't place it towards
the sideline, you know where if it was bad, it
would probably.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Just be a bad thro It was a bad idea.
It was the wrong look.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I can't remember if fitz I think it was Fitzpatrick
at halftime and made that point. It's like, well, it's
a nice play by the safety, but what else was
he gonna do. There's no like, was he just gonna
stand there and pick his nose like there was nobody else.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
To go, just DK running deep.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
He there's just.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
DK running deep, and he didn't have any other choices, Like,
I better help out the corner on this side of
the field, So he went over there and made the pick.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Was Rogers trying quick strike back because the Bengals just scored, You.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
See, that's but that's the point, like did we have
to turn that into a pinball game?
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Like they were up ten to nothing, Cincinnati just scored.
Did you really need to feel at that point like
you had to turn this into a track meet?
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Why not suck the air more again out of pay
Court Stadium and just run fifteen times down their throat
for a touch.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
You're still getting a touchdown back, why not take a
little bit more time.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
To do it?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
And like this is not that this is a different
argument than the friar Mouth should go down argument. You
can play with the clock in the first quarter or
the second.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Quarter, whatever it was.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
That is just physically, I would argue that's almost more
demoralizing than a quick strike home run right after the
Bengals scored, Like if you had the fans kind of
back into it, it's ten to seven, and then you
just kind of worked your way down the field with
Warren and just running and running and running, eating up
all that clock and then getting into the end zone.
They would just been like, well, there's just there's nothing
we're gonna do in this game. It was stupid that
(28:18):
they didn't run the ball there and then tim if
you noticed, they were down ten and then they were like, well,
let's run the ball a lot. And then that drive
that got the touchdown to make it twenty seven to
twenty four. It was mainly on the ground, so like
when they needed it, they sure leaned into it. That
was my biggest gripe with the offense was them getting
away from the run as much as they'd only twenty
(28:38):
carries in a game where you were averaging seven point
four yards as a team.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
One quick thing on the officials, then we'll break and
get to the trifecta.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
You can argue yay or nae.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Broderick Jones held that guy or he just kind of
went down with leverage. You can argue yay or nay.
It should have been pass interference on Chase here or
Ramsey there, tiki tak on which Penny Porter was flagged
four versus which penalty Porter got away with I'm not
really interested in adjudicating all of those. What struck me
(29:09):
about the officiating last night, and it pisses me off
to no end because of where we're going with this
is on the rip away from Metcalf.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
There was no call.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
They never said if it was a touch, a reception
or an interception.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
They never said anything.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
If you watch the body language of the official who
was on the sideline, assuming it was the side judge,
but whatever official was on the sideline there watching that play, did.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You see what he did?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Like he reached to grab the bean bag and then
didn't do it like he thought he saw it right
as it turns out like, But he's like, I didn't
really just see that, did I?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
He reached paralyzed by indecision, he went for his bean
bag and then remembered he should have gone for his
earpiece so he could hear what was coming in.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Well, that's what they did eventually, because at no point, Now,
maybe they did make a call in the field and
the prime crew was in replay showing it, but at
no point did anybody come on the on the field
and say it's an interception. At no point did the
official get on a microphone and say it's a reception.
It's being reviewed, like we had no indication it was
(30:12):
being looked at for about two minutes. And when they
say every time you hear the ref say after discussion,
you know what that means. You know, that means that
New York has gotten in their head, made the call
for them and is reminding them to say after discussion,
meaning on the field, illusion alive. Yes, they're not doing
(30:33):
this as puppets from New York. This is us talking
it out here like guys, you know, whenever the refs
say after discussion, that's like when you're having a quasi
near argument with someone who say no offense, but obviously
you mean a fence, Like it's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
That preamble is just a tip off to what's coming.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Would you rather come out and be like, my boss
just told me we were wrong there from New York,
so we're gonna change this.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
You have to, especially in certain situations when it's not
a turnover that's in play, or when it's not a
touchdown that's in play, or under two minutes where they
can automatically involve themselves.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
You got to make a call.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
So the other team knows that they're gonna challenge or
not because there's risk to a change.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
The Bengals lost a challenge last night.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
A stupid challenge that's caught exactly, but that's costly. So
like this, this mystical we can buzz in whenever we want.
It breaks the rules of how you the mechanism of
the red flag.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
It absolutely does.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Can I go on a little bit of a ran
about officials too, if we have a time, we have
a little bit of time. It's only gonna take me
like thirty seconds. The toush push, Mason McCormick one thousand
percent was a false start. Not even gonna dispute that
right call. You're gonna say that the Eagles ever.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Call it against Philly. I said this last night on Twitter.
You're not wrong, But the amount of people that just
seized on that, like, oh my god, because it's so
obvious they always false start on their toush push.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
You could even look at the game last night.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
If you're talking about offensive lineman false starting, the tackles,
all fall starting for the Bengals, the.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Whole thing jump early. Yes, there is.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
By the way, I don't think McCormick was the one
that on the to push started first.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
This McCormick got off better.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
That happens on almost every Eagles tush push and it
goes uncalled every time. I think refs are kind of
paralyzed because this is the tush push team, right, this
is their thing.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
They do it perfectly. I'll tell you why they do it.
I'll tell you why that happens. That happens because they're
watching the defense against Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
But when it's the other teams, they're like, let's see
how they're doing it.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Let's see if they're doing it right, because you know,
the Eagles have mastered getting around that. But I think
they are so perplexed when it comes to trying to
figure out what the defense is doing. Kind of like
we just talked about the guy that from Washington, we
kept trying to breath, yea. You know, they are watching
the defense so intently to see how they're gonna stop it,
(32:52):
if they're gonna do something illegal to stop it. That
the Eagles can do things illegal to get it, and
they're not noticing. I would want to be the ref
though that has the balls right to big play fourth
and one, Eagles get it, throw that flag, in with
some Gustard really just fly yes, faalse start and be
right about it too, right, like go to replay review
(33:13):
and everybody in America at home sees the guard move
forward first, be right about it. Absolutely call it. I
would crave that moment. I would, especially if it's Lane Johnson.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
I would be especially if it's looking for that moment
so badly if I was a ref, because you know,
they hear the noise, like they know that people are
on them about this, so I would be looking for that.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
But I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
They just default into the defense is going to do
something illegal, and I better make sure I adjudicate it.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
That's so blatant about it.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Hurts moves first, sometimes before the ball even get it,
just pushes the center forward.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
The center's like I'll just hold on to it.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
A million bodies handed to them and then yeah, it's
it is blatant.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
You're right, but they're a bigger fish to fry than
that last night.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
And also, don't do the touch push anymore, Steelers, because you,
like almost every other team the NFL, suck at it,
and you did fall start and that was the right call.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
It was the right call exactly all right trifecta when
we come back one oh.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
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Speaker 4 (34:07):
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every hour enterady WXDX dot com and you could win
one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
With that much money, you could buy like ten coffees.
You know what.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
I was homeschooled. I'm not good at mouth. Listen all
day for your chance. Had some X drug Cash on
one oh five to.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Nine the X from the Dollar Energy Fund Weather Center.
This report is sponsored by Fox One.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
It's gotta be a nice day mostly sunning high of
sixty five with Mark Madden and Tom Offerman on one
oh five nine VX.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Just before the top of the three o'clock hour, Tommy Radio,
what do we have for the trifect today?
Speaker 3 (34:49):
For today's triffect to ten, We're gonna go with my
three least valuable players on a Steelers defense.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Only three, just as a whole.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I was just gonna say, just as a whole was
pretty least valuable in that game. Number three for me,
I'm gonna go with Patrick Queen. He was just invisible
out there the entire time. And I was so encouraged
in the previous weeks how he was popping on the
television copy, you know what I mean, just seeing number
six flying all over the field like a middle linebacker
should look, making a lot of impact.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
He did nothing against Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
He might as well have taken the night off number
two For me, I'm gonna go a little cheat here.
I'm gonna cheat a little bit here. I'm gonna go
Herbig and wat together. But emphasis on Nick Herbig. After
so much noise about him being such a great pass rusher,
he only plays thirty eight percent of the snaps and
then just has zero impact when he's out there anyway.
But the number one least valuable player for that defense
(35:42):
I think has to be Jalen Ramsey. And that's ironic
because I think he could have had a strong case
heading into that game for being the most valuable player
for the Steelers defense this season. But he was cooked
like a Christmas goose all night by Jamar Chase.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Wow, you went through that and didn't mention what huh?
I said? Herbig and Wan they share number two? You
share number two?
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Okay? I think I think you're cheating. You are cheating.
I did cheat. I said that, Yeah, you are listening
to me, Well I was.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I was listening when you said her big, and then
I thought, well, well that's weird.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Why did he say her big? I tuned out on
the Watt part. That's my bad.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
I mean what was bad too. He did have that
half a sack with him. You should have split it
three ways then and then put high Smith in there.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, but he's kind of back up in my mind now.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
I think her big Athough didn't dictate that, yeah, which
I think is maybe another air from the coaching staff.
It's not like high Smith was out there and helping
him the run defense, right. Tim wasn't like he was
his prowess was needed out there to slow chase Brown down.
But what definitely deserves some blame here. I mean, he
had that one play and then that was it. Just
like I said with Patrick Queen, you forgot he even
(36:43):
made the trip to Cincinnati. Through long stretches of that game.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
It's weird in a sense that Cole Holcombe was more visible,
and that was probably a bad thing based on how
he became visible.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
It was a terrible game for all the inside linebackers
and Peyton Wilson had six taps. He's just you know,
he was just okay. And he was beaten coverage a
couple of times as well. So I mean it looked
like there was progress being made by the inside backers
and that just all went right down the toilet in
this game against Cincinnati was one of their worst games
as a unit all year.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
You know, it wasn't very.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Visible either, and had been ever since he got into
the lineup.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Was Harmon. Yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
He thought Harmon had his least impactful performance and.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
There was a weakness with the guards in Cincinnati, theoretically
Reisner and the Rivers, the rookie. I mean, it was
not a strong interior. It was not a strong offensive
line in general. And Tim we said on countdown this week,
we were like, credit to the Steelers pass rush. They're
doing this against weak offensive lines. And that's not always
the case. We sometimes prognosticate, oh, this is a terrible
(37:48):
matchup for the opposing team. Their line stinks, and then
they go out and they shut down the Steelers pass rush.
That happened this week against Cincinnati. That line stinks, but
they did a good job against Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
This seems to be a recur theme where you feel
like the Steelers have just this overwhelming advantage over the
offensive line. To your point, and I've raised that time
and time and time again, and then we walk away
from it.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
And I don't know why we.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Don't focus on that more, because, like Matt Williamson points out,
all the time, you usually walk into a game where
the defensive front is better than the offensive front. And
if it's as decidedly advantageous for the Steelers as it
has been, more games should look like Minnesota and Cleveland,
and not enough.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Do I know. It's a bit bizarre.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
And then conversely, when you see like the Lane Johnson's
of the world come in or a really good matchup
for the opposing team as far as neutralizing the Steelers
pass russes concerned, almost like the Steelers step up in
those instances, and then the pass rush is dominant in
those aspects too, So it's really weird. It's hard to
figure out what the reason would be there. I'd also
(38:53):
like to throw a little honorable mention as far as
the least valuable players is concerned to Darius Slay last night,
because my god, anytime he found himself on Chase Flacco
went right there.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
I want to give you credit for something I did
listen to, even if I didn't listen to the wat
part of these splitting and cheating for number two in
the trifecta, I thought you might have made the best
point of anybody I heard this week.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Wow, I promise you it was an accident.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I think it was because you didn't write it down.
I think you were just kind of spitballing and it
came out of your mouth. But it was a great
point that Tomlin probably worked himself into an oblivion more
with Flacco being traded from Cincinnati to Cleveland than he
will with Josh Allen when they played the Bills in
(39:41):
a couple of weeks, or you know, any of the
next three teams like Herbert with the LA Chargers, or
Love This Sunday, Love This Sunday, Danny Dimes in between
with the Colts, like these teams that are playoff teams,
or Josh Allen, who was an MVP candidate again this year,
like we will come at him with a ton of
(40:03):
questions about like how do you stop Josh Allen? How
do you slow down justin Herbert with his wide receivers,
and he'll make it sound like we're the idiots for asking.
You know, but the Joe Flacco thing, where everybody else
thought it was no big deal, and why is he
turning it into this massive talking point with the Andrew
Berry quote. He's more bugged out about Flacco switching teams
(40:25):
than he is about facing MVP candidates. There's no doubt
about that.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
And just thinking the other quarterback was healthy named Joe,
who's usually there for Cincinnati, it would have gone how
you're illustrating it, well.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yes, I bet you having the case like he would
have been.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
We've seen Joe Burrow before, we know what he has,
We respect him a great deal, we know how good
he is. But this is not new to us. This
is AFC North football. There's a lot of advanced intimate
knowledge between the teams. It's exactly how the SoundBite would
have sounded. But Flacco moves teams and he just melts.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
But nobody fits what you just said, that faux SoundBite
which sounds so real that would come out of my
Tomlin's mouth.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
No one fits that description like Joe Flacco.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Joe Flacco looked like Joe Montana, dipped in Joe Burrow
and rolled in Joe Namath last night. That's how he
performed against the Steelers. In thirty seconds, we'll talk about
everything that went wrong last night, everything that went wrong
last night, and if you want to get a head
start on at eight three, three, four, one, two ninety
(41:26):
nine thirty nine, you.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Can call now and we'll get into it.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
I'm going to air my grievances about the Pittsburgh Steelers,
just like I do on the trip after every game
for the Steelers. You and I can do it together
because there is a lot to air, as the Steelers
aired against Cincinnati one oh five nine.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
The X Now it's your chance to win one thousand
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