December 29, 2025 • 46 mins
Rob is joined by Tom Opferman and Chris Adamski today, as the trio breaks down and shares their thoughts on the very disappointing loss for the Steelers in Cleveland.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is in the locker Room with King and Starks
on Steelers Nation Radio, presented by your neighborhood Forward Store.
The F one fifty is the official truck of the
Pittsburgh Steelers and by Steelers Pro Shop. Get it direct
from the team at the Steelers Pro Shop at shop
dot Steelers dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
And thank you very much for being with us in
the locker room today. Following a disappointing, to say the
least disappointing defeat in Cleveland yesterday, the chance to win
an AFC North title and make this weekend's game against
the Ravens meaningless slipped away as the Steelers were defeated
by the Cleveland Browns at Huntington Bank Stadium by the
final score thirteen to six. I'm Rob King and Max Starks.
(00:51):
The travails of the travels of Max Starks. Once again,
Max snowed in on his connecting flight back Arizona. He
has been able to make it almost every single time.
This time he was not able to make it back
to his home studio, and therefore we have a couple
of guys crowding into the locker room. It's great to
have him on the program. My first time doing a
(01:13):
program with both these guys and uh the hosts of
The Blitz, Tom Offerman and Kristin Amski.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
So it's double duty for you guys today, right.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Well, actually I don't think we're gonna do a Blitz.
We might just bail on that. This might be the
only time you get us. But it is double duty.
As far as filling in for somebody like Max Starks,
no one can possibly do that. So they bring two
of us in to try, and we're still gonna fall short.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
MaTx one of the few people in Pittsburgh media who's
taller than me right now. So it's I actually literally
look up to Max Starks, which doesn't happen too often.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
In mind.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
I like the smooth jazz. I don't know if that's
a rob. I don't know who whose decision that is,
but I like that intro there. I like it. Yeah
that's the club, but you know Midnight.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, that's that's you know, that's that's our guy. That's
our producer, Justin Miller R at the Controls. He's the
he had the music bed the Christmas music beds for
us last week, the Christmas music going and we were
all feeling holly and jolly going to that game. Guys,
weren't we you know, I think like everybody else, I
watched the game Saturday night. I was impressed with the
Ravens effort and all the more reason to want to
(02:16):
avoid them. On Sunday, I thought they looked great. You know,
if you go back to the beginning of the season,
they were forecasts as a team that was a legitimate
Super Bowl contender. They haven't looked like that for a
lot of this season. There's been a time.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
For they have. They certainly looked that way Saturday night.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Guys, no question, rob I got the same vibe. It
looked like a team that still believed that they can
get this thing done. You have Snoopuntley playing for Lamar Jackson.
You're going on the road to green Bay. Green Bay
needs that game too. That's a tough place to play.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
You know.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
It could have been easy for them to I'm not
saying wave the white flag, but really see that uphill
climb that they had in front of them and get
a little intimidated by it, flinch a little bit. And
they did not. They ran the ball right down the Packers'
throats over three hundred yards as a team, Henry was unstoppable.
I thought Huntley did exactly what he was supposed to
do in that game. I was extremely impressed by the Ravens,
(03:09):
and now I'm extremely worried by the Ravens.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
You know, I look at as a Derek Henry appreciation game,
sort of like I don't. To me, at least, he
kind of gets overlooked as one of the great players
of our generation. I think maybe a couple decades ago
when running backs, we've had this kind of mindset where
running backs are disposable as a strong word, but just sort
of replaceable. And that's kind of the mindset of the
NFL in general, our fans watching it now, and this
(03:33):
is the guy who doesn't do it. It's kind of
the old school way. Just big and bruising and is
running people over and also obviously fast and just kind
of the game. And you look back at it, look
at his career now, and the resume he's put together
and what he's still doing at his age, at this
stage of his career is pretty remarkable. And yeah, that's
the guy that's coming to Pittsburgh here in six days
with the playoffs on the line.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And Rob.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
You know that they're going to go the same strategy.
Even if Lamar is able to play this Sunday night,
it's going to be thirty forty carries maybe for Henry.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Well, you would think that's what they would do, and
I agree with you. You know.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It's it's interesting too that you know, there's there's times
and so the listeners of this show know, you know
we talk about have mentioned on occasion, you know, the
prep work that we do, and everybody's prep work is
a little bit different, right everybody does you know you guys,
you know Chris might be in there, you know, digging
out sound bites to write a story.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'm watching games. That's what I do.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So I sit there and I watch the condensed version
of all the opponents games, and I mean there have
been times this year where I'm watching and I'm thinking,
why aren't they running Derrick Henry Moore When they met earlier,
he was down about two and a half three carries
a game from where he was a year ago. And
that's ramped up a little bit, you know, clearly with
(04:49):
what he did with the Steelers with his twenty five
rushes and then this game with the thirty six carries
that he had against Green Bay.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So, look, you're watching the game and you're trying to
figure out what the opponent's going to do. Mostly I'm
watching the game so I can identify who the players are.
You know, it's my job to call the game, it's
max jobs to say why things are happening. But there's
been times where I thought, why is he running the
ball so infrequently? And there was a lot of criticism
for him not being on the field the week prior,
(05:21):
for like the last you know, ten or twelve minutes
of the game. Derek Henry never stepped foot in the field.
But when they do utilize him and they do get
him his touches, he is a force. And they knew that,
and you know, that's why they gave him the biggest
contract ever awarded to a player, you know, over thirty
a running back over thirty years old. So look, and
(05:41):
we'll get much more into the Ravens coming up. But
before we move, you know, onto the Ravens, you know,
just some thoughts on what we saw yesterday.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Chris. Let's start with you, what.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Did you think of the of the way the game
went and how it went and why the Steelers were
not able to secure victory.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Aaron Rodgers has started two hundred and fifty one games
where he's thrown at least twelve pass he's been locked
out first and you know early in some of those games,
and this was only the third. This was the third
lowest yards per attempt he's had any of those games.
And that even got kind of bumped up a little
bit by that final drive where they had about what
sixty passing yards and I guess he threw seven passes
overall and that so that got bumped up there. So
(06:23):
there was obvious that was if you look at you
only score third, only score six points. The offense was
clearly limited and whatever reason, whatever way, and the elephant
the room, of course is no DK Metcalf and then
no number two wide receiver in Colvin Austin's You're going
out there with the wide receiver corps what it was,
and that's I think, then you lose your starting tight
end whatever whatever part of the passing game he is,
(06:45):
of course, and so you see how limited the passing
game was, and I think that was probably the story
of the game or why the Steelers lost in my mind.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
Yeah, I agree with you there, Chris. You know, I
think it really starts with Rogers. I mean, he just
had a terrible performance, and that's kind of why you
signed him, right, get more more than thirteen points on
the road in Cleveland so you can secure the AFC
North a week early. You can't ignore the dk Metcalf's
suspension and Calvin Austen being injured as well being such
a factor in that wide receiver room, but mainly the
(07:12):
DK Metcalf thing. They just weren't able to connect on
those deep balls. I mean, the fourth and one to
Scotty Miller in the end zone. You don't think that's
probably dk Metcalf if he's available to you. I think
it probably is. So that obviously was a problem. But
I'll throw a couple of more things.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Out at you.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
Rob the weighty downs, the Steelers were just awful. Three
for fifteen on third down and zero for three on
fourth down. I mean, you're just not gonna win games
that way. And then they did get their turnovers of
Shador Sanders, but they got zero points off of those turnovers.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, and the Browns had been the worst in the
league at points off at turnovers going into that game,
and yeah, I agree with you guys.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I think those are all factors.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
You know, when you look at the passing yards, and
the conditions weren't real great, they weren't real conducive for passing.
But you know, Shador Sanders first of all, had for
the most part, play time, and I think that was
a bit of an issue early on. But then after that,
you know, after those two drives, and the Browns did
something similar to the Bills last week. They went down
(08:10):
and they had maybe their best drive of the season
to open the game, scored a touchdown. So these things happened,
you know, opening drives, and then after that, the Steelers
just put the clamps on them and it broke a string.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I think.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I think it was ten consecutive games the Steelers had
won when they hadn't committed a turnover, and that streak ended,
and you know, they're they're trying to end the other streak,
which is not winning an AFC North title since twenty twenty.
And you know, a lot of those passing yards came
that that Aaron Rodgers did have one hundred and sixty
eight yards came not only at the end of the game,
but also at the end of the first half, you know,
(08:45):
the Browns are playing a soft prevent and trying to
stop the Steelers from you know, marching all the way
down the field, and the Steelers, you know, they kind.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Of plucked some.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Some yardage out of there that otherwise it was just
not very good at all. The passing game, and you know,
the running game I thought was effective. You know, Aaron Rodgers,
I think, said after the game that he didn't think
the running game was effective. And I know they got
some chunk plays that added to their yardage, but you know,
twenty four carries one hundred and thirty one yards, five
(09:15):
and a half yards of carry. I would have liked
to have seen more of that. I thought that was
there for the Steelers. And you know, and you talk
about the third downs, you know, they had a third
and a foot and you know they went, you know,
spread and then they then they came back in and went,
you know, eye formation, and you know, I just I
(09:36):
didn't see any reason to really, you know, if you
can't get a foot, you know, the Steelers have talked
about this in the past. If you can't get a foot,
you can't get a yard. You know, I don't I
don't know as they needed to do anything other than
just line up and get the yard, and that was
that was a critical lost drive. So there was a
lot of little moments in the games. But you know,
I think you guys are are right when you talk
(09:56):
about the passing game just wasn't effective. It just was
not good. And three for fifteen on third down and
even hey, fourth in a yard. You know, you go
up the sideline to Scotty Miller and look, I love
Scotty Miller as a player, but you know, I just
I just want to see you get the first down
there if you're not going to kick the field goal,
so you know there's a and you know, going in
(10:17):
that direction, that's almost a chip shot for Chris Boswell.
And then hey, listen, who knows how that changes the
complexion of the game if you're down ten to nine
throughout much of that that second half, I didn't fault
the decision. I wasn't sure about the decision to throw
the ball up the sideline, and it was it was
a receiving crew, guys that you know, not counting Adham
(10:37):
Feelin's receptions with the Vikings, but as members of the
Steelers that receiving who had twenty eight receptions the wide
receivers combined. You know, it's not a group that's put
up a lot of numbers. Like you said, they're number
one and number two receivers were out of the game,
and yet you threw it thirty nine times, So you
know whatever, and then you know whatever you want to
(10:59):
you know, wherever one you want to point the finger
of blame, and hopefully it's not that as much as
just reasoning out what happened in the game. The stealers
let a golden opportunity slip away.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah, the fourth down, like I don't have it, you know,
I guess we're in the business. The second guest, you
are going back at it like I don't have a
problem with going for it necessarily, but I do. It's
it's a decision worth going into. And it's you know
what happens in the second quarter and one play. But
when it's a when you know the other team's not
gonna score many points and you figure you're gonna win
the game that way. You're facing a rookie quarterback who's limited,
(11:29):
and sure enough, the Browns at ten points until you
know they were putting field goal range in the end
and get thirteen points out of the game. And the
way the Steelers game plan clearly was conservative in terms
of the short pass and things like that. You knew
they weren't generally. It was just it was a really
curious decision to go to your number five if everybody's healthy,
number five, number six wide receiver. I dont know where
he ranks on your depth chart. If everybody's there. He's
(11:51):
been scratched for some games. And I know you had
the one on one, so you would here to your
play call, and you auldhere to your philosophy, and hey,
I got my guy one on one. I'm gonna make
could play. But all the way around, you know, those
three points ended up and you miss a field goal
again later on in a game like that. Obviously that
those kind of things make the difference.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Look, if Rogers was sitting down at a blackjack table there,
he read it correctly, he played it by the book.
He had no coverage over top. It's one on one
with my receiver. I'm going to take a shot at
the end zone here, and everybody's kind of, you know, thinking, oh,
we're going to try to just get this yard by
any means necessary to keep this drive going. No, I'm
going to go for the jugular here on this fourth down,
and I have a chance to based on the defense
(12:29):
that's presented to me, but.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Not Scotty Miller.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
It just can't be Scotty Miller. You got to kind
of read your gut there and have everybody else at
that blackjack table get mad at you for being like, well,
why don't you play like you're supposed to. I'm sorry,
my gut was telling me to stay instead of a hit,
and that's where I landed on that one. It's just like,
I get what he was doing there, and he was
technically right to take the shot. Just can't take the
shot with Scotty Miller in my opinion. And again, Rob, like,
(12:52):
you're saying, no offense to Scotty Miller. He is a
very he serves a very good purpose on this team.
That's not his purpose though, you.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Know, I think that you're you know, framing that as
technically correct. I think one thing we know about with
Aaron Rodgers is it's going to be technically correct.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
He's gonna come to the line of scrimmage. He's going
to decipher what's going on. And ninety nine times out
of one hundred. Heck, maybe it's one hundred times out
of one hundred. Oh maybe it's ninety eight, but it's
a pretty high percentage. We all would have liked that
on our mass scores back in school. You know, he's
he's going to diagnose the right situation and get you
into the right play.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Even going back to you know, some of what transpired
yesterday just made me think about there was a play
in the Chargers game in which, you know, the Steelers
were they were marching, you know, later in the game,
trying to get back into it. They pitched it to
Jail and Warren. He picked up i think four yards
on first down, running right, and you're in a second
(13:50):
and six you need a touchdown, and you know you're
starting to run the ball more effectively, and he has
dk metcalf open on a slant to the left, diagnoses
that at the line of scrimmage, steps back to throw it,
and for some reason, maybe for the first time ever
in his career, Bud Dupree, instead of rushing the passer,
drops into the drops back and winds up in the
(14:11):
passing lane and and it was perfectly diagnosed. And if
you get that slant there and and you know it's
a it's a it's you know, it's easy to second
guess because that's you know, that's that's a touchdown, right,
that's a touchdown a high percentage of the time. And
then it's easy to say, well, boy, if you just
(14:32):
pitched it to Jail and warning again, because it was
clearly a play running right again, I mean it was
it was a run pass option and he had the
option of pitching it to and I don't even know
if it was an strictly an RPO or just to read, Hey,
I got a guy in a slant. Everybody thinks it's
going to be a run, but DK and I know
it's gonna be a slant, you know, just a head
nod or whatever. And even the play where he told
(14:53):
Kenny game well last week, hey, spread out, split out wide,
I'm gonna throw it to you down the field. That's
what you're gonna get with Aaron Rodgers. And so sometimes
for whatever reason, it doesn't work. Yesterday, some of those
some of those plays diagnosed correctly, like you said, Tom,
just didn't work, and that's the way it goes. I
would have liked to have seen the team run the
football more. But I say that every week. I always
(15:15):
want to see the team run the football more. And
you know, that's the way it is. And he's been,
he's you know, and listen, we're not It's not like
we're laying the blame of this game in Aaron Rodgers' feet.
We're just talking about specific plays in the game. I mean,
look when you come out of the huddle on that
fourth and one and you decide to go for it,
and we're going to talk a little bit about that
(15:36):
later on, but you know, you come out first with
a I think they came out first with a tush push.
Maybe that was on the maybe that was on the
third and a foot play. But then you come back
in with a with a passing look. It's a passing look.
You're telling Aaron Rodgers throw the football. You know, what
do you want to do? Run a quarterback draw, He's
going to throw the football there. So because of the
personnel and what you had out in the field. So
(15:57):
I don't know, guys, it was. You know, there's so
when you lose a game and you lose an opportunity
against a team like the Browns, that you hope to beat.
And now it's four consecutive losses on the road. There
are gonna be a lot of things to slice and dice.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Yeah, and again, I can't help but keep coming back
to you. You didn't have your guy out there in
the passing game. You didn't have you know, your go
to target, the guy who commands all of the coverage,
all the attention from the Browns. And you saw Rogers
trying to find a relationship with anybody he could in
that receiving room. In that game, thelan had five targets,
MVS had nine, Scotty Miller had seven targets. He was
(16:31):
looking for anybody. None of them were producing. Thelen dropped
a really nice back shoulder throw that Rogers had that
would have picked up a nice chunk yardage play. MVS
and Rogers just were never in sync and going for
him three straight times at the end of the game
and just never finding it with him. I mean it
was It's really hard to ignore the impact that no
(16:52):
DK had And I was worried at the beginning of
the season what this would look like if DK METCF
were to be injured. I didn't predict that he would
be suspended. But here we are without DK Metcalf for
two games, and in one game it played out. My
fears played out exactly as I thought they would.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, it's interesting because I think we were saying the
same thing last year about George Pickens. Yes, hey, we
got a guy who is a number one receiver. Now
you can talk about some of the effort things and
what have you. And they made a decision to move
on to DK. But you know, in trying to backfill
with that number two receiver, and there's been moments in
(17:30):
which it looked like it was gonna be Calvin Anderson.
I said that again yesterday in the air too, Calvin Austin.
Calvin Anderson injured offensive lineman Calvin Austin. It looked like
he was gonna be that guy. And you know, there
was a moment there where I thought, Okay, Roman Wilson
is stepping up and maybe he can help fill that void.
He didn't get targeted yesterday. You know, I don't even
(17:53):
know how much he was out in the field yesterday,
So you.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Know there were.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
But you're right, You've come down to the situation in
which you've got a lot of you know, really good
complimentary pieces. Darnel Washington gets hurt in this game, and
suddenly now you are in a in a sticky situation.
All the more reason Chris to who have won this
game and not have DK on what is now going
(18:20):
to be Sunday night, which was originally gonna be Sunday afternoon.
No DK, Okay, that's okay, Probably gonna rest our regulars. Anyway,
we'll get them back for the first round of the playoffs.
We'll be back at full strength. Now you're not gonna
have DK for this game, and you can only imagine
what the Ravens are going to try to do against
the Steelers in this one, in a game in which
you know, game one, they're already effective at stopping the
(18:42):
Steelers running game. You know, I believe strongly that they
will adjust their game plan accordingly in this game. It's
it's a big loss to not have DK. Metcalf out there.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Rob.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
It's funny you say that because I said Miles Austin
the other day. I don't know where that came from.
I think Miles Garrett and Calvin Austin.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
There's Kerl Austin And sometimes I get you know, Austin
and Austin, but you did bring up Roman Wilson. He
only played nine snaps. It's it's kind of how far
he's kind of falling on the depth chart right now
in terms of I mean, Delan was was waived by
a team with the losing record just a few weeks ago,
MVS was on the practice squad just just a few
weeks ago. Uh, just Ben Scroan didn't play any snaps
(19:20):
on offense. I know his hand is kind of where
it's at, but that's kind of where the receiving core
is right now. And some of those you know, we
talked about the running game and the running game being
somewhat productive Jalen Moore and it's just relatively small sample
side the twelve carries, but by far, no running back
faced more of an eight man box according next to
gen stats here seventy five percent of his carries or
against eight man box and just out you have to
(19:41):
have ten carries or register and the stats to at
least to search at least what I have to start.
So we don't know what game Well was facing and
his seven carries, but just by watching up the eye
test raw, of course you were there you know, you've
your own the real life all twenty two when you're
watching from the press box and it just see you know,
there's obvious and it makes sense, right the Steelers without
their top two wad or receivers, don't let them run
(20:01):
the balls. It had to be the Browns game plan.
And the Steelers still weren't actually you know, snuffed in
the running game, but it was clear what they were doing.
So Rogers, as we talked about, he's such a tactician.
He sees that every time, you know, whatever he's doing
at the line of scrimmage and he's looking for those
one ones and he was going to adhere to that.
And he has such a history with MVS for those
final three plays. People talk about that a lot in
(20:23):
terms of going to MVS those three plays. But he's
just diagnosing what he sees and he has a trust
in that guy over the years. And I don't know
that the first looked like I think the one was
probably just kind of a quasi throw away at that point,
and I don't know that looks like a miscommunication though,
as I just said, they have such a history and
a communication in terms of it seemed like there was
a miscommunication on one of those. The third one on
(20:44):
the fourth down play probably should have been past interference,
Like it's not one of those things where it's egregious,
but I don't know how it probably should have been
called right in terms of the final play of the game,
and maybe that makes things different.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
But.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
It's already was was face. We everybody knows a thin
wide receiver corps. It was one of the weaknesses of
the roster all season was didn't have the depth of
wide receiver and you take the top two off it.
Any team loses their top two wide receiver, it's going
to be a problem. And it was and you kind
of hope that the Steelers and they almost did find
a way and you win a defensive game when the
rock fight type of game and had to come down
(21:18):
there to the end. But it also was you know
a lot of people in terms of what we've seen
this season out of the Steelers offense and out of
Aaron Rodgers just some of that. There were a lot
more intermediate and deep throws from Aaron Rodgers than there
usually are in terms of the game. So it wasn't
just like a total dump off game and things like that,
and it wasn't just that final drive because they never
(21:40):
were down by more than well, I guess ten, I
think for a little bit there. But generally speaking, it
wasn't like the game got away from them at any
point of course, where they were down by multiple scores
and needed to just chuck it around. But he did
attempt six passes of twenty more yards downfield, thirteen passes
of ten or more yards downfield, So it wasn't as
if this was just a complete, just you know, dump
(22:00):
it off, check down type of game. I think that
they it was just when again you're limited, the wide
receivers core was what it was in this game, and
that's what they went with. And and Rogers, he's he's
such a he's such a like a football computer in
his head, right, he was going to go there to
the one on one matchup every time. And just some
(22:20):
of these guys at the stage of their career that
they're at, Adam Feeling and whoever it is they're they're
just they're not always going to win the one, especially
when a guy like Denzel Ward, who's one of the
top corners in the league.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So we have our AFC recap coming up. Our Steelers
drive of the game. Uh, good luck to Justin Miller
because there wasn't much in the way of drives of
the game.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
We also are going to take your phone calls a
little bit later on. We do that on Monday, guys.
So we'll take a couple of phone calls for one
six coming up in the second hour. All that still
had when we continue in the Locker Room presented by
our neighborhood Ford Joined Steelers Pro Shop on Steelers Nation Radio,
a part of the Steelers Audio Network.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
This is in the Locker Room with King and Starks
on Steelers Nation Radio presented by your neighborhood Ford Store.
The F one P fifty is the official truck of
the Pittsburgh Steelers and by Steelers Pro Shop. Get it
direct from the team at the Steelers Pro Shop at
Shop dot Steelers dot com.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And he's gonna get the snap and run out to
the right. Finds a little priest, turns a corner the forty,
the thirty five to thirty down the.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Right sideline and is shut down a bounds by da
about day down at the twenty two yard line. A
pickup of twenty nine yards for Hayward and a first
down for the Steelers, and that that is our Steelers
Drive of the game, presented by your neighborhood. For sure,
the F one fifty is the official truck of the
Pittsburgh Steelers. Max Stark's traveling today had some issues last
(23:52):
night getting out of Cleveland. We all had some issues
in Cleveland last night, unfortunately, and we are very pleased
to be joined by Tom Afferman and Chris Aidanski, who
you guys know obviously from the Blitz. Every show, every
day from twelve to two is their show. And guys,
I love the creativity that the Steelers have shown out
of that formation in which you expect the play that
(24:14):
Max has dubbed the Steel City Shove. We have the
steel City Special, and that was the Steel City Sweep.
As Max continues to give them different names, but really
really creative out of these short yarded situations with Connor Hayward.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Yeah, and I'm really at a loss here as far
as the Pittsburgh Plunge is concerned, Rob, because I got
nothing out of that. I don't have like a Pittsburgh
Sweep or a Pittsburgh Special that sounds as cool as
Steel City Sweep Steel City Special. So I guess I
just have to yield.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yeah, I liked I liked the Pittsburgh Plunge. I did.
I liked it. But it's just it's the Steel City
Show exactly right.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
That's what it is.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
That's what we're calling it.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
That's what it is.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
In the special stuff they do out of it. You're
You're so right. It's it's awesome to see they're getting creative,
and it's working almost every single time that they get creative.
I'm still Jerry Doulak and I did Monday in that
quarterback last week. You can hear him and Tim Ben's
this week on that show recapping this loss on Fox
Sports Pittsburgh. But Jerry brought up and I agreed with him. Rob,
I'm waiting for that iteration out of the Steel City
(25:14):
Special where the ball finds its way to Aaron Rodgers
somehow and you throw out of it because he's back
there for a reason. Right, There's something there I think
that they can toy with.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I'd love to see the breakdown of formational you can
find some data about like this formation of this personnel
package yards per plays, not that there's a fifty five
yard run and a twenty nine yard run and then
all the one in you know, one yard games they've
had over the season so far, and only a couple
what zeros that the yards per play out of the
Touschbots for the Steelers might be it might be better
than the Eagles, right, I mean, have the Eagles done
(25:46):
any of those splash plays? I mean, they're they're so
efficient in the getting the one yard every time. I
don't know how many times they've done a variation of
it where they've gained yards.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
And that's that's they've continued to struggle with that. Those
numbers have gone down every year. When they first ran
it, it was unstoppable and teams are finding a way to
limit its effectiveness.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
You know, the two things.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
First of all, you know we're talking about Scotty Miller,
and the last couple of weeks, we've seen Scotty Miller,
and we've seen Connor Hayward. You know, Hayward had a
touchdown run a couple of weeks ago. And you know
Scotty Miller, you know, we've seen him come out and
be a gunner and we've seen him hold for field goals.
(26:28):
And you know, I think it's when you have a
good deep roster, and I think the Steelers have a
good deep roster. That depth has been tested, and I
think it's it's come to the four. You know, guys
like you know, we're we're wringing our hands that that
James Pierre wasn't there and he started the season on
the practice squad. You know, I think they've they've done
a nice job of building a deep roster. But it
(26:50):
is just so nice to have a Connor Hayward and
a Scottie Miller on your team, you.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Guys that guys that may not play a ton all
the time, but boy, you just know they're going to
be in the right spot and do the right thing
and make plays for you given the opportunity.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
Oh yeah, no question, And you've seen that in these
past couple of weeks. You'd like to see maybe a
little bit more out of it from Scotty Miller in
this past game, but you know, he Scotty Miller. He
can only do so much. But they really do have
those guys like almost on the fringes of the rosters
that just do the dirty work, the little things. You
throw Ben Skoronik in there too as someone that fits
(27:29):
that mold. He might be the first team All Pro
as far as the special teamer is concerned. I think
he's going to get at least some recognition there. He's
been fantastic in that role, especially a role that's been
expanded since Miles Killerbrew, a former first team All Pro
in that position, was you know, lost to the season
due to injury. So yeah, Rob, you're right, like, there's
those guys that you know, they fill in that you know,
(27:52):
forty ninth, fiftieth spot on your roster, and they're getting
a lot of contributions out of them, and most teams
don't get that from guys that far down.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
There was a punt. How many times in history of
football do you actually think this? But scronick was they
didn't double him as the gunner on a first quarter punt,
and we're like, he's not doubled, and show it up though,
like that's a mistake, and we're kind of like half kidding,
I guess. But at the same time, he clearly beat
the guy and he forced the fair catch, got right
in front of the returner. I think it might have
(28:20):
been the first pun of the game.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Actually.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Then they started doubling after that and that's just you know,
Scroni's there, and yeah, you wonder if his hand, if
he'd be more, especially with the nutrition right now at
wide receivers, he.
Speaker 5 (28:31):
Probably would have factored in more, I think in the
game and the offensive game plan.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
And by the way, the run for Connor Hayward that
began this segment of twenty nine yards, even if you
take that out, guys, you take out the biggest splash
play the Steers had. And of course you can't do that.
What are you gonna do? Take away Derrick henry sixty
yard game? But I'm just talking about the effectiveness of
the running game. And yeah, Rogers had to scramble won
(28:59):
for six yards. Take away, just take away that twenty
nine yarder, take away their longest. They were still twenty
three for one oh two. That's still four and a
half yards of carry. I mean, I like the way
they ran the football. I you know, four and a
half yards of carry signed me up. I still would
have liked to have seen more of the running game yesterday.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Yeah, I mean that that was more. The yards per
attempt were below that per passing attempt until the final
drive there. For the games they were more effective or anything. But,
like I said, the Browns clearly, and it makes total
sense because again, how much time we talked about the
wide receivers s depth trot for the Steelers on Sunday
was what it was. The Browns clear Leaver said, we're
going to stack up and stop the run. So I
(29:42):
think that a lot of it. I don't want to
say it was robotics probably is not the right term,
but but the Steelers were so we had our matchups.
We're going to take the matchups. Even though where it
would be our you know, fifth wide receiver, sixth wide receiver,
if everybody was healthy and everybody was available to us,
We're still going to take that one on one matchup
no matter whatrunning We're not going to run against this box.
Which is what you do. That's what you scheme. You
(30:03):
don't want to you respond to how the defense reacts
to you. But at the same time, even with that,
the stack boxes and how much attention they were paying
to it, and in some ways that is encouraging. If
you get by this game Sunday and go to the playoffs,
we know the Steelers have to establish. Maybe the most
encouraging part is the Steelers run defense these past three
weeks now and what it's been able to do, and
you've actually all of a sudden start really good. And
(30:24):
obviously the test on Sunday will kind of show where
they're at against Derrick Henry and that attack right now,
and that you know they're obviously the Ravens are a
running team right now. They always are, but they're even
more so now with the backup quarterback. But the running
game and the run defense are two things you think
you can feel good about if you can get to
the meaningful games in the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Ah, And that is a great place to leave off
this segment, and as we get in the next segment,
I agree, not only that, I'm going to go beyond
that there were This is going to be hard to
hear for people because it was. It was a disappointing loss.
For sure, there were still a lot of things to
like coming out of this game, in my opinion. We
(31:02):
are going to dive into some of those things when
we continue, But first we want to remind you that
you can gear up with the latest game data necessities
at the official Students Pro shops. Get the latest Sideline apparel, jerseys,
terrible towles, authentic memorabilia and custom exclusives you can only
find directly from the team. Visit one of the Officials
Students Pro shops located at Akrashuer Stadium, Grove City Premium
(31:24):
Outlets or Tanger out Let's or gear up online at
shop dot Steers dot com. Get it direct from the
team at the Studis Pro Shop at shop dot Steelers
dot com.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Back more in the Locker.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Room presented by a neighborhood Forard Store and the Students
Pro Shop on Steelers Nation Radio, part of the Steelers
Audio Network.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
This is in the Locker Room with King and Starks
on Steelers Nation Radio, presented by your neighborhood Ford Store.
The F one point fifty is the official truck of
the Pittsburgh Steelers and by Steelers Pro Shop. Get it
direct from the team at the Steelers Pro Shop at
Shop dog Steelers dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
And our deep in heartfelt thanks to Tom Afferman and
Chris Damski. You know them, you love them from the
Blitz every day on these airwaves from twelve to two,
stepping in to fill in for Max Starks who is
traveling back to Arizona. Man Max Max is he is
logging from freaking flyer miles, you know, going to traveling
(32:30):
to college football games, and from the college football games
to the Steelers and then the Steelers back to Arizona
for his home and you know, he's all over the place.
I think he had three games this weekend, and he's
got some games coming up this weekend, and he's a busy.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
He's in high demand and we are happy to have him.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
But we are happy to have Tom Opferman and Kris
Adamski as well, and our show today.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
I couldn't imagine having Max's schedule and jumping out all
these plays like this. I think he's got the Fiesta
Bowl this week, right, or no, the Cotton Bowl Miami
and Ohio State. I think I've heard him him talking
to something.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
He's bothy doing.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
That, he's doing something. I know that he's got some
college football playoff stuff that he's he's covering coming up.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
And Rob, you talked about the prep, and I know
how much prep you do and how much all you
guys do play by play into the game that came
and imagined, but you met he's got a prep for
what free games in one weekend? I mean, yeah, that's
wowd to think of that, to know to be able
to go in and be sharp enough to remember, oh,
this is this little linebacker for you know, Ohio State,
but it's also the Ravens, you.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Know, right, and going from college to pro to a
Miami Ohio State came to Ravens Steelers.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Yeah, I think he's the best man.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
He's the best, you know, uh, blessed with you know,
a great mind and a great work ethic and and
a great understanding of the game of football.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
So all that stuff helps.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
But believe me, yeah, he's Max putting in a lot
of work and a dad and a husband and all
that stuff. So good for Max. And thank you again
guys for coming in now. I did want to point
out a couple of things. Is Chris mentioned at the
end of this last segment. Really, if I look at
this game and you know you have the Boswell miss
(34:07):
field goal, I didn't see it, guys. I don't know
if anything untoward happened. I do know that kicking to
that end of the stadium, you know, in warm ups,
it was hard for either kicker to kick even a
fifty yarder. Meanwhile, going the other way, they're banging them
from sixty, you know, and so I don't know if
(34:28):
anything happened on the snap. I you know, the minute
had left his foot. It didn't look like it was
gonna have enough juice. And I think was off to
the right as well. So other than that, and we're
not used to seeing Chris Boswell miss field goals, much
less field goals and back to back games, you know,
I'm not I can't say that I'm overly concerned about that.
I thought Corlis Weightman had a fine game punting the ball,
(34:50):
So I thought the special teams were fine. I think
they've been fine. They haven't been we haven't seen them
make some of the plays we saw them make, for example,
last year, you know when they were all over the place,
and you know, blocking kicks and returning punts and you know,
Calvin Austin had a touchdown return last year and a punt.
We haven't seen that. But they've been solid. The defense,
(35:12):
to me, continues to be solid. Yeah, he gave up
a couple opening drives, they continue to be solid. You
continue to run the football well. I think that's something
that's trending in a positive direction. The only real blip
being that Baltimore game. But since then, Miami, Detroit, Cleveland,
you've run the football well, and I like, I know
(35:33):
they were zero for three on fourth down, and you
don't like that. And one of them was at the
end of the game when you had to go for
it on fourth down. Clearly, well a couple of them
at the end of the game. But you know, the
students had only gone for it in their first thirteen games.
They were I think twenty eighth in the league on
fourth down attempts. They'd only gone for it thirteen times
in thirteen games, in a league in which it's just
(35:55):
become almost a matter of course, Right, Okay, we got
the ball at this part of the field. You know
we got it there. You know, thirty nine it's too
long for a field goal. It's fourth and four. We're
going for it, right, I mean, it's just become part
of the way of doing business.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
In their last two games, it's seriously been five for five.
I love it. I love the aggression.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
They didn't convert it yesterday, but you know what, and
in retrospect, maybe you do. And I think Mike, one
of Mike Tomlin's strengths has always been, you know, winning
the game at hand, right, and coaching. I think you
kind of mentioned this, Chris about hey, if you kick
the field goal there, you're playing to win the game.
But I like the aggression. I like the fact that
they went for so. I you know, it's hard to
(36:36):
say this when you go and have such a disappointing loss,
but I still think that it wasn't like the bottom
fell out.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
You won the turnover battle again, right.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know, if I told you going into this game
you're gonna run for over one hundred and thirty yards
and you're gonna win the turnover battle two to nothing,
you know, you're gonna wonder what the hats and T
shirts look like?
Speaker 3 (36:55):
That said AFC North Champ. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yes, I just think that there was a lot of things,
you know now that we're like, well, you know, the
sort of this glum reaction, you know, deservedly so after
that loss, there's a lot to like about this game,
I think still, And that's it, you know, those words
are I have to push them through my mouth, you know,
to say that, But I do think it's true.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
Yeah, I too love the aggressiveness that they're showing on
these fourth down calls, keeping the offense on the field
and going for it. And in fact, even though you
winz for three against the Browns, my worry is do
you pull back on that a little bit more moving
forward in the game against Baltimore, hopefully in the playoffs,
and then going into next year with Mike Tomlin, because
I think this should be a shift in his philosophy permanently.
(37:39):
It's how the league is now. You have to be
more aggressive. Trust your offense is more in their short
yardage situations. The Steelers are doing it and save yesterday,
have been doing it very successfully. And then the defense
I think is the overwhelming positive from this game. And
I got to give our colleague Matt Williams and my
co host on the DV pregame show a lot of credit.
He said on our pregame, you know, don't be surprised
(37:59):
if the Browns come out and get a field goal early,
maybe get touchdown early, have success on their early drives.
Because Stefanski's a good offensive coach. He schemes a lot
of things up and Shador is smart enough where he
can you know, execute things that are you know, pointed
out to him. And it's really timing based. Once you
have to start playing football, and you know, the team
(38:20):
start throwing counterpunches at them. That's when shador in the
Browns offense struggles. That's exactly how it played out. They
score on their first two possessions and then really nothing
from then on. So I thought the defense was fantastic.
I thought Cam Hayward once again maybe the best player
on the field. Alex Heismith has to say in that,
I mean those two were just a force all game.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
Yeah, the defense. The last six Browns drive, not counting
the kneel down there was the seventh, but the last
six drives they had in the game, it just starts
in the second quarter on they gained fifty nine yards
of offense forty nine net yards if you count the
penalties in that, I mean the two first downs for
the Browns from that point on in the game. It
was And yes, obviously part of it is the Browns
about the running back. They're but the quarterback is not
(39:01):
very good. They're they're limited, not very good offense. You
should do that against exactly exactly if you're I don't
care if you're a good defense, you need to do that.
And that's exactly what the Steelers did. There's something taken
away from that they allowed. It was three point one
yards per carry overall by the Browns, only two point
eight by running backs though, so it even better when
you say that we look at that way and only
one carried by a running back that was a more
(39:21):
than six yards all game long against the run game.
So now this is now three games in a row.
Now the Steelers have allowed in total in those three
games one hundred and forty six rushing yards, so forty
eight point seven per game, and that's fewer than they
had either in those three games combined. The two previous
games the Steelers, of course was over two hundred yards allowed.
Now the problem is, how do you look at it, like, well,
(39:43):
the run defense is really good going against a team
that's coming in here that's going to run the ball. However,
the game that started, I just referenced the two games
before this run. One of them was the Ravens. They
rushed for more than two hundred yards, So that's probably
going to more than probably anything else, I would say,
the Seeler run defense in the in the Ravens rushing offense,
I think is probably going to be the matchup or
(40:05):
the thing to look at that probably is the best
chance to decide who goes to the playoffs come Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I don't think there's much question about it, you know,
and this this early on here, and you know, we're
a week away and haven't had a huge opportunity to
dive into a lot of the numbers. And it was
twenty seven to twenty two last time I remember. There's
some some controversial calls down the stretch of that game,
including the touchdown being taken away on the great play
(40:33):
by Joey Porter. You know, you could argue, certainly, and
a lot of people are that late in this game
there was an OPI that that should should have been
called that wasn't on the final play of the game.
Probably somewhere the Lion fans are giggling about that that
the Steelers didn't get a call on their OPI at
the a DPI I beg your pardon defensive pass interference
(40:53):
at the end of that game. So you know, there's
there's there's a lot to think about, like how's this
game going to go? Because Lamar going to play, But
it feels like this could be one of those thirteen
to ten Steelers games.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
Guys, yeah, I mean, and these two coaches love getting
into those games, Like, you don't need to convince either
one of them to play this out that way. We
talked about this earlier to start the show today, but
it's just it's just so hard for me to not
see the Ravens. And you pointed out, Rob that they
have shot away from him at times this year, But
now that it is the last game of the year
(41:26):
and you have to win or go home, Henry not
getting as many carries as humanly possible just that doesn't
make sense to me if they were to hold back
on him at all, Like I'm feeling like a forty
Krry game is in the cards here.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, well, if they continue to run it, well they will.
And if he's got, you know, I think if he's
got he had twenty five carries in the first game
for ninety four yards. If he has twenty if you know, again,
we just talked about this, right, like if you told
me you win the turnover battle two to nothing, you
run for one hundred and thirty yards, you hold them
really to ten points? You know, hey, we won the game, right,
(42:00):
I mean, he just ran it twenty five times in
a loss. Answst to you others, But I have a
feeling if you tell Ravens fans, hey, you're gonna wake
up Monday morning and I'm gonna tell you one stat
Derrick Henry had twenty five carries.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
You're just wondering who the fifth seed was. You're gonna
be hosting in the first round of the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Right, So, but again, there's a lot more to it
than that. We don't know whether Lamar Jackson's gonna be healthy.
There's plenty of time to dig into those matchups coming up.
So we all are in agreement that there were a
lot of things to like.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Things to like.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
A lot seems a bit of a stretch. There were things,
some things that were hopefully trending, you know, when you
start talking about things that are trending right and things
that are kind of in that middle ground. I always
think of the tie in hockey, or what they call
(42:56):
the over it's the overtime loss now, which is not
technically a loss, right you go of the you know
a team is, you know, seventeen six and five, right,
And to me that really means you're seventeen and twenty
one in your four games under five hundred.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
But that's a I digress. That's it.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
But but what happens is if you win a game, right,
and then you have three straight overtime losses, you have
a four game unbeaten streak, right, But then if you
lose the next game, tho, now you have a four
game winless streak.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Right, You've only played one more game.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
But it's just a matter of how you're looking at
things and and how those things, you know, how you
decide to look at those things and what they might mean.
I think that this is a continuation of some positives
for the Steelers, but.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
We're certainly going to find out on Sunday against the Ravens.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
Guys, you talked about the score, you said thirteen ten
or something. One of my favorite things is the tendency.
It was four times over three season the Steewers scored
exactly sixteen points. It seems like the most like sixteen
in a score line, Right, it's the most like rock
flight like Raven steel Er. Somebody's gonna finish. Me and
Tom talk about this. I think the last time they played,
it seemed like every game they play, and I just
looked it up. Now there's been nine games in the
(44:06):
series where somebody scored sixteen points. It just seems like
it's gonna be sixteen, thirteen, sixteen, six sixteen, ten, twenty
to sixteen, you know, twenty three sixteen. A lot of
field goals will be involved. That's the most like Steelers
Ravens thing that could happen, and we just watched it.
We all watched a game like that. This happened yesterday,
and that's just kind of where again, we'll see what
Calvin Austin. I don't know. He didn't practice at all
(44:27):
last week, so just a total guess at this point
of course. But you know, I'm not like super expecting
Calvin Austin to be back necessarily.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Maybe he is.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
You're down your top two receivers once again, but you
do look at the game. You're right. Defensively again, the
Browns aren't that good, but it's still was a was
a dominating, really defensive performance after that second drive throughout
the game. And really, I mean, we don't need to
break down that game anymore than it is, especially when
I'm bringing up the opposing punter. But I mean, man,
but what is it? Bejorcaz? You can you're the pronouncing
(44:57):
guy Obviously Horric has some of those punts he had,
especially late in that that game in the second half.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
It's he was one of the worst punters heading into
the game to the worst, the worst as far as that.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Last thirty five point one the last he was last
in the league in net.
Speaker 5 (45:13):
Had an out of body experience yesterday.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
Wow, that that's what sixty one yard punt and uh
in the final the essentially set up there to win
the game there for him with.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah, by math, you're you're expecting to get the ball
to forty and he gets the ball at the twenty, right.
Speaker 3 (45:28):
That's tough. That, that's tough. A lot of tough things.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
But the AFC playoff picture has crystallized to some degree,
not completely. But we're going to talk about that a
little bit with our AFC recap next hour. Also going
to be taking your phone calls at four one, two, nine,
one six.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
UH.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
We want to continue to thank the guys who are
going to be with us for the next hour as well,
Tom Offerman and Chris Daanski.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
You love him on the blitz.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Hopefully you're loving him as well today in the locker
room and in the locker room is.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Going to continue it's present to our neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Fords join the Students Pro Shop on Stuards Nation Radio,
a part of the Students Audio Network.
This is in the locker Room with King and Starks
on Steelers Nation Radio, presented by your neighborhood Forward Store.
The F one fifty is the official truck of the
Pittsburgh Steelers and by Steelers Pro Shop. Get it direct
from the team at the Steelers Pro Shop at shop
dot Steelers dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
And thank you very much for being with us in
the locker room today. Following a disappointing, to say the
least disappointing defeat in Cleveland yesterday, the chance to win
an AFC North title and make this weekend's game against
the Ravens meaningless slipped away as the Steelers were defeated
by the Cleveland Browns at Huntington Bank Stadium by the
final score thirteen to six. I'm Rob King and Max Starks.
(00:51):
The travails of the travels of Max Starks. Once again,
Max snowed in on his connecting flight back Arizona. He
has been able to make it almost every single time.
This time he was not able to make it back
to his home studio, and therefore we have a couple
of guys crowding into the locker room. It's great to
have him on the program. My first time doing a
(01:13):
program with both these guys and uh the hosts of
The Blitz, Tom Offerman and Kristin Amski.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
So it's double duty for you guys today, right.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Well, actually I don't think we're gonna do a Blitz.
We might just bail on that. This might be the
only time you get us. But it is double duty.
As far as filling in for somebody like Max Starks,
no one can possibly do that. So they bring two
of us in to try, and we're still gonna fall short.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
MaTx one of the few people in Pittsburgh media who's
taller than me right now. So it's I actually literally
look up to Max Starks, which doesn't happen too often.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
In mind.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
I like the smooth jazz. I don't know if that's
a rob. I don't know who whose decision that is,
but I like that intro there. I like it. Yeah
that's the club, but you know Midnight.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, that's that's you know, that's that's our guy. That's
our producer, Justin Miller R at the Controls. He's the
he had the music bed the Christmas music beds for
us last week, the Christmas music going and we were
all feeling holly and jolly going to that game. Guys,
weren't we you know, I think like everybody else, I
watched the game Saturday night. I was impressed with the
Ravens effort and all the more reason to want to
(02:16):
avoid them. On Sunday, I thought they looked great. You know,
if you go back to the beginning of the season,
they were forecasts as a team that was a legitimate
Super Bowl contender. They haven't looked like that for a
lot of this season. There's been a time.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
For they have. They certainly looked that way Saturday night.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Guys, no question, rob I got the same vibe. It
looked like a team that still believed that they can
get this thing done. You have Snoopuntley playing for Lamar Jackson.
You're going on the road to green Bay. Green Bay
needs that game too. That's a tough place to play.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
You know.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
It could have been easy for them to I'm not
saying wave the white flag, but really see that uphill
climb that they had in front of them and get
a little intimidated by it, flinch a little bit. And
they did not. They ran the ball right down the Packers'
throats over three hundred yards as a team, Henry was unstoppable.
I thought Huntley did exactly what he was supposed to
do in that game. I was extremely impressed by the Ravens,
(03:09):
and now I'm extremely worried by the Ravens.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
You know, I look at as a Derek Henry appreciation game,
sort of like I don't. To me, at least, he
kind of gets overlooked as one of the great players
of our generation. I think maybe a couple decades ago
when running backs, we've had this kind of mindset where
running backs are disposable as a strong word, but just sort
of replaceable. And that's kind of the mindset of the
NFL in general, our fans watching it now, and this
(03:33):
is the guy who doesn't do it. It's kind of
the old school way. Just big and bruising and is
running people over and also obviously fast and just kind
of the game. And you look back at it, look
at his career now, and the resume he's put together
and what he's still doing at his age, at this
stage of his career is pretty remarkable. And yeah, that's
the guy that's coming to Pittsburgh here in six days
with the playoffs on the line.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And Rob.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
You know that they're going to go the same strategy.
Even if Lamar is able to play this Sunday night,
it's going to be thirty forty carries maybe for Henry.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Well, you would think that's what they would do, and
I agree with you. You know.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It's it's interesting too that you know, there's there's times
and so the listeners of this show know, you know
we talk about have mentioned on occasion, you know, the
prep work that we do, and everybody's prep work is
a little bit different, right everybody does you know you guys,
you know Chris might be in there, you know, digging
out sound bites to write a story.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'm watching games. That's what I do.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So I sit there and I watch the condensed version
of all the opponents games, and I mean there have
been times this year where I'm watching and I'm thinking,
why aren't they running Derrick Henry Moore When they met earlier,
he was down about two and a half three carries
a game from where he was a year ago. And
that's ramped up a little bit, you know, clearly with
(04:49):
what he did with the Steelers with his twenty five
rushes and then this game with the thirty six carries
that he had against Green Bay.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So, look, you're watching the game and you're trying to
figure out what the opponent's going to do. Mostly I'm
watching the game so I can identify who the players are.
You know, it's my job to call the game, it's
max jobs to say why things are happening. But there's
been times where I thought, why is he running the
ball so infrequently? And there was a lot of criticism
for him not being on the field the week prior,
(05:21):
for like the last you know, ten or twelve minutes
of the game. Derek Henry never stepped foot in the field.
But when they do utilize him and they do get
him his touches, he is a force. And they knew that,
and you know, that's why they gave him the biggest
contract ever awarded to a player, you know, over thirty
a running back over thirty years old. So look, and
(05:41):
we'll get much more into the Ravens coming up. But
before we move, you know, onto the Ravens, you know,
just some thoughts on what we saw yesterday.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Chris. Let's start with you, what.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Did you think of the of the way the game
went and how it went and why the Steelers were
not able to secure victory.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Aaron Rodgers has started two hundred and fifty one games
where he's thrown at least twelve pass he's been locked
out first and you know early in some of those games,
and this was only the third. This was the third
lowest yards per attempt he's had any of those games.
And that even got kind of bumped up a little
bit by that final drive where they had about what
sixty passing yards and I guess he threw seven passes
overall and that so that got bumped up there. So
(06:23):
there was obvious that was if you look at you
only score third, only score six points. The offense was
clearly limited and whatever reason, whatever way, and the elephant
the room, of course is no DK Metcalf and then
no number two wide receiver in Colvin Austin's You're going
out there with the wide receiver corps what it was,
and that's I think, then you lose your starting tight
end whatever whatever part of the passing game he is,
(06:45):
of course, and so you see how limited the passing
game was, and I think that was probably the story
of the game or why the Steelers lost in my mind.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
Yeah, I agree with you there, Chris. You know, I
think it really starts with Rogers. I mean, he just
had a terrible performance, and that's kind of why you
signed him, right, get more more than thirteen points on
the road in Cleveland so you can secure the AFC
North a week early. You can't ignore the dk Metcalf's
suspension and Calvin Austen being injured as well being such
a factor in that wide receiver room, but mainly the
(07:12):
DK Metcalf thing. They just weren't able to connect on
those deep balls. I mean, the fourth and one to
Scotty Miller in the end zone. You don't think that's
probably dk Metcalf if he's available to you. I think
it probably is. So that obviously was a problem. But
I'll throw a couple of more things.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Out at you.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
Rob the weighty downs, the Steelers were just awful. Three
for fifteen on third down and zero for three on
fourth down. I mean, you're just not gonna win games
that way. And then they did get their turnovers of
Shador Sanders, but they got zero points off of those turnovers.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, and the Browns had been the worst in the
league at points off at turnovers going into that game,
and yeah, I agree with you guys.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I think those are all factors.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
You know, when you look at the passing yards, and
the conditions weren't real great, they weren't real conducive for passing.
But you know, Shador Sanders first of all, had for
the most part, play time, and I think that was
a bit of an issue early on. But then after that,
you know, after those two drives, and the Browns did
something similar to the Bills last week. They went down
(08:10):
and they had maybe their best drive of the season
to open the game, scored a touchdown. So these things happened,
you know, opening drives, and then after that, the Steelers
just put the clamps on them and it broke a string.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I think.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I think it was ten consecutive games the Steelers had
won when they hadn't committed a turnover, and that streak ended,
and you know, they're they're trying to end the other streak,
which is not winning an AFC North title since twenty twenty.
And you know, a lot of those passing yards came
that that Aaron Rodgers did have one hundred and sixty
eight yards came not only at the end of the game,
but also at the end of the first half, you know,
(08:45):
the Browns are playing a soft prevent and trying to
stop the Steelers from you know, marching all the way
down the field, and the Steelers, you know, they kind.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Of plucked some.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Some yardage out of there that otherwise it was just
not very good at all. The passing game, and you know,
the running game I thought was effective. You know, Aaron Rodgers,
I think, said after the game that he didn't think
the running game was effective. And I know they got
some chunk plays that added to their yardage, but you know,
twenty four carries one hundred and thirty one yards, five
(09:15):
and a half yards of carry. I would have liked
to have seen more of that. I thought that was
there for the Steelers. And you know, and you talk
about the third downs, you know, they had a third
and a foot and you know they went, you know,
spread and then they then they came back in and went,
you know, eye formation, and you know, I just I
(09:36):
didn't see any reason to really, you know, if you
can't get a foot, you know, the Steelers have talked
about this in the past. If you can't get a foot,
you can't get a yard. You know, I don't I
don't know as they needed to do anything other than
just line up and get the yard, and that was
that was a critical lost drive. So there was a
lot of little moments in the games. But you know,
I think you guys are are right when you talk
(09:56):
about the passing game just wasn't effective. It just was
not good. And three for fifteen on third down and
even hey, fourth in a yard. You know, you go
up the sideline to Scotty Miller and look, I love
Scotty Miller as a player, but you know, I just
I just want to see you get the first down
there if you're not going to kick the field goal,
so you know there's a and you know, going in
(10:17):
that direction, that's almost a chip shot for Chris Boswell.
And then hey, listen, who knows how that changes the
complexion of the game if you're down ten to nine
throughout much of that that second half, I didn't fault
the decision. I wasn't sure about the decision to throw
the ball up the sideline, and it was it was
a receiving crew, guys that you know, not counting Adham
(10:37):
Feelin's receptions with the Vikings, but as members of the
Steelers that receiving who had twenty eight receptions the wide
receivers combined. You know, it's not a group that's put
up a lot of numbers. Like you said, they're number
one and number two receivers were out of the game,
and yet you threw it thirty nine times, So you
know whatever, and then you know whatever you want to
(10:59):
you know, wherever one you want to point the finger
of blame, and hopefully it's not that as much as
just reasoning out what happened in the game. The stealers
let a golden opportunity slip away.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah, the fourth down, like I don't have it, you know,
I guess we're in the business. The second guest, you
are going back at it like I don't have a
problem with going for it necessarily, but I do. It's
it's a decision worth going into. And it's you know
what happens in the second quarter and one play. But
when it's a when you know the other team's not
gonna score many points and you figure you're gonna win
the game that way. You're facing a rookie quarterback who's limited,
(11:29):
and sure enough, the Browns at ten points until you
know they were putting field goal range in the end
and get thirteen points out of the game. And the
way the Steelers game plan clearly was conservative in terms
of the short pass and things like that. You knew
they weren't generally. It was just it was a really
curious decision to go to your number five if everybody's healthy,
number five, number six wide receiver. I dont know where
he ranks on your depth chart. If everybody's there. He's
(11:51):
been scratched for some games. And I know you had
the one on one, so you would here to your
play call, and you auldhere to your philosophy, and hey,
I got my guy one on one. I'm gonna make
could play. But all the way around, you know, those
three points ended up and you miss a field goal
again later on in a game like that. Obviously that
those kind of things make the difference.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Look, if Rogers was sitting down at a blackjack table there,
he read it correctly, he played it by the book.
He had no coverage over top. It's one on one
with my receiver. I'm going to take a shot at
the end zone here, and everybody's kind of, you know, thinking, oh,
we're going to try to just get this yard by
any means necessary to keep this drive going. No, I'm
going to go for the jugular here on this fourth down,
and I have a chance to based on the defense
(12:29):
that's presented to me, but.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Not Scotty Miller.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
It just can't be Scotty Miller. You got to kind
of read your gut there and have everybody else at
that blackjack table get mad at you for being like, well,
why don't you play like you're supposed to. I'm sorry,
my gut was telling me to stay instead of a hit,
and that's where I landed on that one. It's just like,
I get what he was doing there, and he was
technically right to take the shot. Just can't take the
shot with Scotty Miller in my opinion. And again, Rob, like,
(12:52):
you're saying, no offense to Scotty Miller. He is a
very he serves a very good purpose on this team.
That's not his purpose though, you.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Know, I think that you're you know, framing that as
technically correct. I think one thing we know about with
Aaron Rodgers is it's going to be technically correct.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
He's gonna come to the line of scrimmage. He's going
to decipher what's going on. And ninety nine times out
of one hundred. Heck, maybe it's one hundred times out
of one hundred. Oh maybe it's ninety eight, but it's
a pretty high percentage. We all would have liked that
on our mass scores back in school. You know, he's
he's going to diagnose the right situation and get you
into the right play.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Even going back to you know, some of what transpired
yesterday just made me think about there was a play
in the Chargers game in which, you know, the Steelers
were they were marching, you know, later in the game,
trying to get back into it. They pitched it to
Jail and Warren. He picked up i think four yards
on first down, running right, and you're in a second
(13:50):
and six you need a touchdown, and you know you're
starting to run the ball more effectively, and he has
dk metcalf open on a slant to the left, diagnoses
that at the line of scrimmage, steps back to throw it,
and for some reason, maybe for the first time ever
in his career, Bud Dupree, instead of rushing the passer,
drops into the drops back and winds up in the
(14:11):
passing lane and and it was perfectly diagnosed. And if
you get that slant there and and you know it's
a it's a it's you know, it's easy to second
guess because that's you know, that's that's a touchdown, right,
that's a touchdown a high percentage of the time. And
then it's easy to say, well, boy, if you just
(14:32):
pitched it to Jail and warning again, because it was
clearly a play running right again, I mean it was
it was a run pass option and he had the
option of pitching it to and I don't even know
if it was an strictly an RPO or just to read, Hey,
I got a guy in a slant. Everybody thinks it's
going to be a run, but DK and I know
it's gonna be a slant, you know, just a head
nod or whatever. And even the play where he told
(14:53):
Kenny game well last week, hey, spread out, split out wide,
I'm gonna throw it to you down the field. That's
what you're gonna get with Aaron Rodgers. And so sometimes
for whatever reason, it doesn't work. Yesterday, some of those
some of those plays diagnosed correctly, like you said, Tom,
just didn't work, and that's the way it goes. I
would have liked to have seen the team run the
football more. But I say that every week. I always
(15:15):
want to see the team run the football more. And
you know, that's the way it is. And he's been,
he's you know, and listen, we're not It's not like
we're laying the blame of this game in Aaron Rodgers' feet.
We're just talking about specific plays in the game. I mean,
look when you come out of the huddle on that
fourth and one and you decide to go for it,
and we're going to talk a little bit about that
(15:36):
later on, but you know, you come out first with
a I think they came out first with a tush push.
Maybe that was on the maybe that was on the
third and a foot play. But then you come back
in with a with a passing look. It's a passing look.
You're telling Aaron Rodgers throw the football. You know, what
do you want to do? Run a quarterback draw, He's
going to throw the football there. So because of the
personnel and what you had out in the field. So
(15:57):
I don't know, guys, it was. You know, there's so
when you lose a game and you lose an opportunity
against a team like the Browns, that you hope to beat.
And now it's four consecutive losses on the road. There
are gonna be a lot of things to slice and dice.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Yeah, and again, I can't help but keep coming back
to you. You didn't have your guy out there in
the passing game. You didn't have you know, your go
to target, the guy who commands all of the coverage,
all the attention from the Browns. And you saw Rogers
trying to find a relationship with anybody he could in
that receiving room. In that game, thelan had five targets,
MVS had nine, Scotty Miller had seven targets. He was
(16:31):
looking for anybody. None of them were producing. Thelen dropped
a really nice back shoulder throw that Rogers had that
would have picked up a nice chunk yardage play. MVS
and Rogers just were never in sync and going for
him three straight times at the end of the game
and just never finding it with him. I mean it
was It's really hard to ignore the impact that no
(16:52):
DK had And I was worried at the beginning of
the season what this would look like if DK METCF
were to be injured. I didn't predict that he would
be suspended. But here we are without DK Metcalf for
two games, and in one game it played out. My
fears played out exactly as I thought they would.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, it's interesting because I think we were saying the
same thing last year about George Pickens. Yes, hey, we
got a guy who is a number one receiver. Now
you can talk about some of the effort things and
what have you. And they made a decision to move
on to DK. But you know, in trying to backfill
with that number two receiver, and there's been moments in
(17:30):
which it looked like it was gonna be Calvin Anderson.
I said that again yesterday in the air too, Calvin Austin.
Calvin Anderson injured offensive lineman Calvin Austin. It looked like
he was gonna be that guy. And you know, there
was a moment there where I thought, Okay, Roman Wilson
is stepping up and maybe he can help fill that void.
He didn't get targeted yesterday. You know, I don't even
(17:53):
know how much he was out in the field yesterday,
So you.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Know there were.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
But you're right, You've come down to the situation in
which you've got a lot of you know, really good
complimentary pieces. Darnel Washington gets hurt in this game, and
suddenly now you are in a in a sticky situation.
All the more reason Chris to who have won this
game and not have DK on what is now going
(18:20):
to be Sunday night, which was originally gonna be Sunday afternoon.
No DK, Okay, that's okay, Probably gonna rest our regulars. Anyway,
we'll get them back for the first round of the playoffs.
We'll be back at full strength. Now you're not gonna
have DK for this game, and you can only imagine
what the Ravens are going to try to do against
the Steelers in this one, in a game in which
you know, game one, they're already effective at stopping the
(18:42):
Steelers running game. You know, I believe strongly that they
will adjust their game plan accordingly in this game. It's
it's a big loss to not have DK. Metcalf out there.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Rob.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
It's funny you say that because I said Miles Austin
the other day. I don't know where that came from.
I think Miles Garrett and Calvin Austin.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
There's Kerl Austin And sometimes I get you know, Austin
and Austin, but you did bring up Roman Wilson. He
only played nine snaps. It's it's kind of how far
he's kind of falling on the depth chart right now
in terms of I mean, Delan was was waived by
a team with the losing record just a few weeks ago,
MVS was on the practice squad just just a few
weeks ago. Uh, just Ben Scroan didn't play any snaps
(19:20):
on offense. I know his hand is kind of where
it's at, but that's kind of where the receiving core
is right now. And some of those you know, we
talked about the running game and the running game being
somewhat productive Jalen Moore and it's just relatively small sample
side the twelve carries, but by far, no running back
faced more of an eight man box according next to
gen stats here seventy five percent of his carries or
against eight man box and just out you have to
(19:41):
have ten carries or register and the stats to at
least to search at least what I have to start.
So we don't know what game Well was facing and
his seven carries, but just by watching up the eye
test raw, of course you were there you know, you've
your own the real life all twenty two when you're
watching from the press box and it just see you know,
there's obvious and it makes sense, right the Steelers without
their top two wad or receivers, don't let them run
(20:01):
the balls. It had to be the Browns game plan.
And the Steelers still weren't actually you know, snuffed in
the running game, but it was clear what they were doing.
So Rogers, as we talked about, he's such a tactician.
He sees that every time, you know, whatever he's doing
at the line of scrimmage and he's looking for those
one ones and he was going to adhere to that.
And he has such a history with MVS for those
final three plays. People talk about that a lot in
(20:23):
terms of going to MVS those three plays. But he's
just diagnosing what he sees and he has a trust
in that guy over the years. And I don't know
that the first looked like I think the one was
probably just kind of a quasi throw away at that point,
and I don't know that looks like a miscommunication though,
as I just said, they have such a history and
a communication in terms of it seemed like there was
a miscommunication on one of those. The third one on
(20:44):
the fourth down play probably should have been past interference,
Like it's not one of those things where it's egregious,
but I don't know how it probably should have been
called right in terms of the final play of the game,
and maybe that makes things different.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
But.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
It's already was was face. We everybody knows a thin
wide receiver corps. It was one of the weaknesses of
the roster all season was didn't have the depth of
wide receiver and you take the top two off it.
Any team loses their top two wide receiver, it's going
to be a problem. And it was and you kind
of hope that the Steelers and they almost did find
a way and you win a defensive game when the
rock fight type of game and had to come down
(21:18):
there to the end. But it also was you know
a lot of people in terms of what we've seen
this season out of the Steelers offense and out of
Aaron Rodgers just some of that. There were a lot
more intermediate and deep throws from Aaron Rodgers than there
usually are in terms of the game. So it wasn't
just like a total dump off game and things like that,
and it wasn't just that final drive because they never
(21:40):
were down by more than well, I guess ten, I
think for a little bit there. But generally speaking, it
wasn't like the game got away from them at any
point of course, where they were down by multiple scores
and needed to just chuck it around. But he did
attempt six passes of twenty more yards downfield, thirteen passes
of ten or more yards downfield, So it wasn't as
if this was just a complete, just you know, dump
(22:00):
it off, check down type of game. I think that
they it was just when again you're limited, the wide
receivers core was what it was in this game, and
that's what they went with. And and Rogers, he's he's
such a he's such a like a football computer in
his head, right, he was going to go there to
the one on one matchup every time. And just some
(22:20):
of these guys at the stage of their career that
they're at, Adam Feeling and whoever it is they're they're
just they're not always going to win the one, especially
when a guy like Denzel Ward, who's one of the
top corners in the league.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So we have our AFC recap coming up. Our Steelers
drive of the game. Uh, good luck to Justin Miller
because there wasn't much in the way of drives of
the game.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
We also are going to take your phone calls a
little bit later on. We do that on Monday, guys.
So we'll take a couple of phone calls for one
six coming up in the second hour. All that still
had when we continue in the Locker Room presented by
our neighborhood Ford Joined Steelers Pro Shop on Steelers Nation Radio,
a part of the Steelers Audio Network.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
This is in the Locker Room with King and Starks
on Steelers Nation Radio presented by your neighborhood Ford Store.
The F one P fifty is the official truck of
the Pittsburgh Steelers and by Steelers Pro Shop. Get it
direct from the team at the Steelers Pro Shop at
Shop dot Steelers dot com.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And he's gonna get the snap and run out to
the right. Finds a little priest, turns a corner the forty,
the thirty five to thirty down the.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Right sideline and is shut down a bounds by da
about day down at the twenty two yard line. A
pickup of twenty nine yards for Hayward and a first
down for the Steelers, and that that is our Steelers
Drive of the game, presented by your neighborhood. For sure,
the F one fifty is the official truck of the
Pittsburgh Steelers. Max Stark's traveling today had some issues last
(23:52):
night getting out of Cleveland. We all had some issues
in Cleveland last night, unfortunately, and we are very pleased
to be joined by Tom Afferman and Chris Aidanski, who
you guys know obviously from the Blitz. Every show, every
day from twelve to two is their show. And guys,
I love the creativity that the Steelers have shown out
of that formation in which you expect the play that
(24:14):
Max has dubbed the Steel City Shove. We have the
steel City Special, and that was the Steel City Sweep.
As Max continues to give them different names, but really
really creative out of these short yarded situations with Connor Hayward.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Yeah, and I'm really at a loss here as far
as the Pittsburgh Plunge is concerned, Rob, because I got
nothing out of that. I don't have like a Pittsburgh
Sweep or a Pittsburgh Special that sounds as cool as
Steel City Sweep Steel City Special. So I guess I
just have to yield.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yeah, I liked I liked the Pittsburgh Plunge. I did.
I liked it. But it's just it's the Steel City
Show exactly right.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
That's what it is.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
That's what we're calling it.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
That's what it is.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
In the special stuff they do out of it. You're
You're so right. It's it's awesome to see they're getting creative,
and it's working almost every single time that they get creative.
I'm still Jerry Doulak and I did Monday in that
quarterback last week. You can hear him and Tim Ben's
this week on that show recapping this loss on Fox
Sports Pittsburgh. But Jerry brought up and I agreed with him. Rob,
I'm waiting for that iteration out of the Steel City
(25:14):
Special where the ball finds its way to Aaron Rodgers
somehow and you throw out of it because he's back
there for a reason. Right, There's something there I think
that they can toy with.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I'd love to see the breakdown of formational you can
find some data about like this formation of this personnel
package yards per plays, not that there's a fifty five
yard run and a twenty nine yard run and then
all the one in you know, one yard games they've
had over the season so far, and only a couple
what zeros that the yards per play out of the
Touschbots for the Steelers might be it might be better
than the Eagles, right, I mean, have the Eagles done
(25:46):
any of those splash plays? I mean, they're they're so
efficient in the getting the one yard every time. I
don't know how many times they've done a variation of
it where they've gained yards.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
And that's that's they've continued to struggle with that. Those
numbers have gone down every year. When they first ran
it, it was unstoppable and teams are finding a way to
limit its effectiveness.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
You know, the two things.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
First of all, you know we're talking about Scotty Miller,
and the last couple of weeks, we've seen Scotty Miller,
and we've seen Connor Hayward. You know, Hayward had a
touchdown run a couple of weeks ago. And you know
Scotty Miller, you know, we've seen him come out and
be a gunner and we've seen him hold for field goals.
(26:28):
And you know, I think it's when you have a
good deep roster, and I think the Steelers have a
good deep roster. That depth has been tested, and I
think it's it's come to the four. You know, guys
like you know, we're we're wringing our hands that that
James Pierre wasn't there and he started the season on
the practice squad. You know, I think they've they've done
a nice job of building a deep roster. But it
(26:50):
is just so nice to have a Connor Hayward and
a Scottie Miller on your team, you.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Guys that guys that may not play a ton all
the time, but boy, you just know they're going to
be in the right spot and do the right thing
and make plays for you given the opportunity.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
Oh yeah, no question, And you've seen that in these
past couple of weeks. You'd like to see maybe a
little bit more out of it from Scotty Miller in
this past game, but you know, he Scotty Miller. He
can only do so much. But they really do have
those guys like almost on the fringes of the rosters
that just do the dirty work, the little things. You
throw Ben Skoronik in there too as someone that fits
(27:29):
that mold. He might be the first team All Pro
as far as the special teamer is concerned. I think
he's going to get at least some recognition there. He's
been fantastic in that role, especially a role that's been
expanded since Miles Killerbrew, a former first team All Pro
in that position, was you know, lost to the season
due to injury. So yeah, Rob, you're right, like, there's
those guys that you know, they fill in that you know,
(27:52):
forty ninth, fiftieth spot on your roster, and they're getting
a lot of contributions out of them, and most teams
don't get that from guys that far down.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
There was a punt. How many times in history of
football do you actually think this? But scronick was they
didn't double him as the gunner on a first quarter punt,
and we're like, he's not doubled, and show it up though,
like that's a mistake, and we're kind of like half kidding,
I guess. But at the same time, he clearly beat
the guy and he forced the fair catch, got right
in front of the returner. I think it might have
(28:20):
been the first pun of the game.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Actually.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Then they started doubling after that and that's just you know,
Scroni's there, and yeah, you wonder if his hand, if
he'd be more, especially with the nutrition right now at
wide receivers, he.
Speaker 5 (28:31):
Probably would have factored in more, I think in the
game and the offensive game plan.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
And by the way, the run for Connor Hayward that
began this segment of twenty nine yards, even if you
take that out, guys, you take out the biggest splash
play the Steers had. And of course you can't do that.
What are you gonna do? Take away Derrick henry sixty
yard game? But I'm just talking about the effectiveness of
the running game. And yeah, Rogers had to scramble won
(28:59):
for six yards. Take away, just take away that twenty
nine yarder, take away their longest. They were still twenty
three for one oh two. That's still four and a
half yards of carry. I mean, I like the way
they ran the football. I you know, four and a
half yards of carry signed me up. I still would
have liked to have seen more of the running game yesterday.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Yeah, I mean that that was more. The yards per
attempt were below that per passing attempt until the final
drive there. For the games they were more effective or anything. But,
like I said, the Browns clearly, and it makes total
sense because again, how much time we talked about the
wide receivers s depth trot for the Steelers on Sunday
was what it was. The Browns clear Leaver said, we're
going to stack up and stop the run. So I
(29:42):
think that a lot of it. I don't want to
say it was robotics probably is not the right term,
but but the Steelers were so we had our matchups.
We're going to take the matchups. Even though where it
would be our you know, fifth wide receiver, sixth wide receiver,
if everybody was healthy and everybody was available to us,
We're still going to take that one on one matchup
no matter whatrunning We're not going to run against this box.
Which is what you do. That's what you scheme. You
(30:03):
don't want to you respond to how the defense reacts
to you. But at the same time, even with that,
the stack boxes and how much attention they were paying
to it, and in some ways that is encouraging. If
you get by this game Sunday and go to the playoffs,
we know the Steelers have to establish. Maybe the most
encouraging part is the Steelers run defense these past three
weeks now and what it's been able to do, and
you've actually all of a sudden start really good. And
(30:24):
obviously the test on Sunday will kind of show where
they're at against Derrick Henry and that attack right now,
and that you know they're obviously the Ravens are a
running team right now. They always are, but they're even
more so now with the backup quarterback. But the running
game and the run defense are two things you think
you can feel good about if you can get to
the meaningful games in the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Ah, And that is a great place to leave off
this segment, and as we get in the next segment,
I agree, not only that, I'm going to go beyond
that there were This is going to be hard to
hear for people because it was. It was a disappointing loss.
For sure, there were still a lot of things to
like coming out of this game, in my opinion. We
(31:02):
are going to dive into some of those things when
we continue, But first we want to remind you that
you can gear up with the latest game data necessities
at the official Students Pro shops. Get the latest Sideline apparel, jerseys,
terrible towles, authentic memorabilia and custom exclusives you can only
find directly from the team. Visit one of the Officials
Students Pro shops located at Akrashuer Stadium, Grove City Premium
(31:24):
Outlets or Tanger out Let's or gear up online at
shop dot Steers dot com. Get it direct from the
team at the Studis Pro Shop at shop dot Steelers
dot com.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Back more in the Locker.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Room presented by a neighborhood Forard Store and the Students
Pro Shop on Steelers Nation Radio, part of the Steelers
Audio Network.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
This is in the Locker Room with King and Starks
on Steelers Nation Radio, presented by your neighborhood Ford Store.
The F one point fifty is the official truck of
the Pittsburgh Steelers and by Steelers Pro Shop. Get it
direct from the team at the Steelers Pro Shop at
Shop dog Steelers dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
And our deep in heartfelt thanks to Tom Afferman and
Chris Damski. You know them, you love them from the
Blitz every day on these airwaves from twelve to two,
stepping in to fill in for Max Starks who is
traveling back to Arizona. Man Max Max is he is
logging from freaking flyer miles, you know, going to traveling
(32:30):
to college football games, and from the college football games
to the Steelers and then the Steelers back to Arizona
for his home and you know, he's all over the place.
I think he had three games this weekend, and he's
got some games coming up this weekend, and he's a busy.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
He's in high demand and we are happy to have him.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
But we are happy to have Tom Opferman and Kris
Adamski as well, and our show today.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
I couldn't imagine having Max's schedule and jumping out all
these plays like this. I think he's got the Fiesta
Bowl this week, right, or no, the Cotton Bowl Miami
and Ohio State. I think I've heard him him talking
to something.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
He's bothy doing.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
That, he's doing something. I know that he's got some
college football playoff stuff that he's he's covering coming up.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
And Rob, you talked about the prep, and I know
how much prep you do and how much all you
guys do play by play into the game that came
and imagined, but you met he's got a prep for
what free games in one weekend? I mean, yeah, that's
wowd to think of that, to know to be able
to go in and be sharp enough to remember, oh,
this is this little linebacker for you know, Ohio State,
but it's also the Ravens, you.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Know, right, and going from college to pro to a
Miami Ohio State came to Ravens Steelers.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Yeah, I think he's the best man.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
He's the best, you know, uh, blessed with you know,
a great mind and a great work ethic and and
a great understanding of the game of football.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
So all that stuff helps.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
But believe me, yeah, he's Max putting in a lot
of work and a dad and a husband and all
that stuff. So good for Max. And thank you again
guys for coming in now. I did want to point
out a couple of things. Is Chris mentioned at the
end of this last segment. Really, if I look at
this game and you know you have the Boswell miss
(34:07):
field goal, I didn't see it, guys. I don't know
if anything untoward happened. I do know that kicking to
that end of the stadium, you know, in warm ups,
it was hard for either kicker to kick even a
fifty yarder. Meanwhile, going the other way, they're banging them
from sixty, you know, and so I don't know if
(34:28):
anything happened on the snap. I you know, the minute
had left his foot. It didn't look like it was
gonna have enough juice. And I think was off to
the right as well. So other than that, and we're
not used to seeing Chris Boswell miss field goals, much
less field goals and back to back games, you know,
I'm not I can't say that I'm overly concerned about that.
I thought Corlis Weightman had a fine game punting the ball,
(34:50):
So I thought the special teams were fine. I think
they've been fine. They haven't been we haven't seen them
make some of the plays we saw them make, for example,
last year, you know when they were all over the place,
and you know, blocking kicks and returning punts and you know,
Calvin Austin had a touchdown return last year and a punt.
We haven't seen that. But they've been solid. The defense,
(35:12):
to me, continues to be solid. Yeah, he gave up
a couple opening drives, they continue to be solid. You
continue to run the football well. I think that's something
that's trending in a positive direction. The only real blip
being that Baltimore game. But since then, Miami, Detroit, Cleveland,
you've run the football well, and I like, I know
(35:33):
they were zero for three on fourth down, and you
don't like that. And one of them was at the
end of the game when you had to go for
it on fourth down. Clearly, well a couple of them
at the end of the game. But you know, the
students had only gone for it in their first thirteen games.
They were I think twenty eighth in the league on
fourth down attempts. They'd only gone for it thirteen times
in thirteen games, in a league in which it's just
(35:55):
become almost a matter of course, Right, Okay, we got
the ball at this part of the field. You know
we got it there. You know, thirty nine it's too
long for a field goal. It's fourth and four. We're
going for it, right, I mean, it's just become part
of the way of doing business.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
In their last two games, it's seriously been five for five.
I love it. I love the aggression.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
They didn't convert it yesterday, but you know what, and
in retrospect, maybe you do. And I think Mike, one
of Mike Tomlin's strengths has always been, you know, winning
the game at hand, right, and coaching. I think you
kind of mentioned this, Chris about hey, if you kick
the field goal there, you're playing to win the game.
But I like the aggression. I like the fact that
they went for so. I you know, it's hard to
(36:36):
say this when you go and have such a disappointing loss,
but I still think that it wasn't like the bottom
fell out.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
You won the turnover battle again, right.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know, if I told you going into this game
you're gonna run for over one hundred and thirty yards
and you're gonna win the turnover battle two to nothing,
you know, you're gonna wonder what the hats and T
shirts look like?
Speaker 3 (36:55):
That said AFC North Champ. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yes, I just think that there was a lot of things,
you know now that we're like, well, you know, the
sort of this glum reaction, you know, deservedly so after
that loss, there's a lot to like about this game,
I think still, And that's it, you know, those words
are I have to push them through my mouth, you know,
to say that, But I do think it's true.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
Yeah, I too love the aggressiveness that they're showing on
these fourth down calls, keeping the offense on the field
and going for it. And in fact, even though you
winz for three against the Browns, my worry is do
you pull back on that a little bit more moving
forward in the game against Baltimore, hopefully in the playoffs,
and then going into next year with Mike Tomlin, because
I think this should be a shift in his philosophy permanently.
(37:39):
It's how the league is now. You have to be
more aggressive. Trust your offense is more in their short
yardage situations. The Steelers are doing it and save yesterday,
have been doing it very successfully. And then the defense
I think is the overwhelming positive from this game. And
I got to give our colleague Matt Williams and my
co host on the DV pregame show a lot of credit.
He said on our pregame, you know, don't be surprised
(37:59):
if the Browns come out and get a field goal early,
maybe get touchdown early, have success on their early drives.
Because Stefanski's a good offensive coach. He schemes a lot
of things up and Shador is smart enough where he
can you know, execute things that are you know, pointed
out to him. And it's really timing based. Once you
have to start playing football, and you know, the team
(38:20):
start throwing counterpunches at them. That's when shador in the
Browns offense struggles. That's exactly how it played out. They
score on their first two possessions and then really nothing
from then on. So I thought the defense was fantastic.
I thought Cam Hayward once again maybe the best player
on the field. Alex Heismith has to say in that,
I mean those two were just a force all game.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
Yeah, the defense. The last six Browns drive, not counting
the kneel down there was the seventh, but the last
six drives they had in the game, it just starts
in the second quarter on they gained fifty nine yards
of offense forty nine net yards if you count the
penalties in that, I mean the two first downs for
the Browns from that point on in the game. It
was And yes, obviously part of it is the Browns
about the running back. They're but the quarterback is not
(39:01):
very good. They're they're limited, not very good offense. You
should do that against exactly exactly if you're I don't
care if you're a good defense, you need to do that.
And that's exactly what the Steelers did. There's something taken
away from that they allowed. It was three point one
yards per carry overall by the Browns, only two point
eight by running backs though, so it even better when
you say that we look at that way and only
one carried by a running back that was a more
(39:21):
than six yards all game long against the run game.
So now this is now three games in a row.
Now the Steelers have allowed in total in those three
games one hundred and forty six rushing yards, so forty
eight point seven per game, and that's fewer than they
had either in those three games combined. The two previous
games the Steelers, of course was over two hundred yards allowed.
Now the problem is, how do you look at it, like, well,
(39:43):
the run defense is really good going against a team
that's coming in here that's going to run the ball. However,
the game that started, I just referenced the two games
before this run. One of them was the Ravens. They
rushed for more than two hundred yards, So that's probably
going to more than probably anything else, I would say,
the Seeler run defense in the in the Ravens rushing offense,
I think is probably going to be the matchup or
(40:05):
the thing to look at that probably is the best
chance to decide who goes to the playoffs come Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I don't think there's much question about it, you know,
and this this early on here, and you know, we're
a week away and haven't had a huge opportunity to
dive into a lot of the numbers. And it was
twenty seven to twenty two last time I remember. There's
some some controversial calls down the stretch of that game,
including the touchdown being taken away on the great play
(40:33):
by Joey Porter. You know, you could argue, certainly, and
a lot of people are that late in this game
there was an OPI that that should should have been
called that wasn't on the final play of the game.
Probably somewhere the Lion fans are giggling about that that
the Steelers didn't get a call on their OPI at
the a DPI I beg your pardon defensive pass interference
(40:53):
at the end of that game. So you know, there's
there's there's a lot to think about, like how's this
game going to go? Because Lamar going to play, But
it feels like this could be one of those thirteen
to ten Steelers games.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
Guys, yeah, I mean, and these two coaches love getting
into those games, Like, you don't need to convince either
one of them to play this out that way. We
talked about this earlier to start the show today, but
it's just it's just so hard for me to not
see the Ravens. And you pointed out, Rob that they
have shot away from him at times this year, But
now that it is the last game of the year
(41:26):
and you have to win or go home, Henry not
getting as many carries as humanly possible just that doesn't
make sense to me if they were to hold back
on him at all, Like I'm feeling like a forty
Krry game is in the cards here.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, well, if they continue to run it, well they will.
And if he's got, you know, I think if he's
got he had twenty five carries in the first game
for ninety four yards. If he has twenty if you know, again,
we just talked about this, right, like if you told
me you win the turnover battle two to nothing, you
run for one hundred and thirty yards, you hold them
really to ten points? You know, hey, we won the game, right,
(42:00):
I mean, he just ran it twenty five times in
a loss. Answst to you others, But I have a
feeling if you tell Ravens fans, hey, you're gonna wake
up Monday morning and I'm gonna tell you one stat
Derrick Henry had twenty five carries.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
You're just wondering who the fifth seed was. You're gonna
be hosting in the first round of the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Right, So, but again, there's a lot more to it
than that. We don't know whether Lamar Jackson's gonna be healthy.
There's plenty of time to dig into those matchups coming up.
So we all are in agreement that there were a
lot of things to like.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Things to like.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
A lot seems a bit of a stretch. There were things,
some things that were hopefully trending, you know, when you
start talking about things that are trending right and things
that are kind of in that middle ground. I always
think of the tie in hockey, or what they call
(42:56):
the over it's the overtime loss now, which is not
technically a loss, right you go of the you know
a team is, you know, seventeen six and five, right,
And to me that really means you're seventeen and twenty
one in your four games under five hundred.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
But that's a I digress. That's it.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
But but what happens is if you win a game, right,
and then you have three straight overtime losses, you have
a four game unbeaten streak, right, But then if you
lose the next game, tho, now you have a four
game winless streak.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Right, You've only played one more game.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
But it's just a matter of how you're looking at
things and and how those things, you know, how you
decide to look at those things and what they might mean.
I think that this is a continuation of some positives
for the Steelers, but.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
We're certainly going to find out on Sunday against the Ravens.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
Guys, you talked about the score, you said thirteen ten
or something. One of my favorite things is the tendency.
It was four times over three season the Steewers scored
exactly sixteen points. It seems like the most like sixteen
in a score line, Right, it's the most like rock
flight like Raven steel Er. Somebody's gonna finish. Me and
Tom talk about this. I think the last time they played,
it seemed like every game they play, and I just
looked it up. Now there's been nine games in the
(44:06):
series where somebody scored sixteen points. It just seems like
it's gonna be sixteen, thirteen, sixteen, six sixteen, ten, twenty
to sixteen, you know, twenty three sixteen. A lot of
field goals will be involved. That's the most like Steelers
Ravens thing that could happen, and we just watched it.
We all watched a game like that. This happened yesterday,
and that's just kind of where again, we'll see what
Calvin Austin. I don't know. He didn't practice at all
(44:27):
last week, so just a total guess at this point
of course. But you know, I'm not like super expecting
Calvin Austin to be back necessarily.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Maybe he is.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
You're down your top two receivers once again, but you
do look at the game. You're right. Defensively again, the
Browns aren't that good, but it's still was a was
a dominating, really defensive performance after that second drive throughout
the game. And really, I mean, we don't need to
break down that game anymore than it is, especially when
I'm bringing up the opposing punter. But I mean, man,
but what is it? Bejorcaz? You can you're the pronouncing
(44:57):
guy Obviously Horric has some of those punts he had,
especially late in that that game in the second half.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
It's he was one of the worst punters heading into
the game to the worst, the worst as far as that.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Last thirty five point one the last he was last
in the league in net.
Speaker 5 (45:13):
Had an out of body experience yesterday.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
Wow, that that's what sixty one yard punt and uh
in the final the essentially set up there to win
the game there for him with.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah, by math, you're you're expecting to get the ball
to forty and he gets the ball at the twenty, right.
Speaker 3 (45:28):
That's tough. That, that's tough. A lot of tough things.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
But the AFC playoff picture has crystallized to some degree,
not completely. But we're going to talk about that a
little bit with our AFC recap next hour. Also going
to be taking your phone calls at four one, two, nine,
one six.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
UH.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
We want to continue to thank the guys who are
going to be with us for the next hour as well,
Tom Offerman and Chris Daanski.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
You love him on the blitz.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Hopefully you're loving him as well today in the locker
room and in the locker room is.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Going to continue it's present to our neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Fords join the Students Pro Shop on Stuards Nation Radio,
a part of the Students Audio Network.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.