July 27, 2025 • 41 mins
Wes Uhler steps in for Rob, as he and Max continue today's coverage from Latrobe on Sunday morning.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Iheartradios. Live coverage of twenty twenty five Steelers training Camp
is presented by FedEx where Now meets Next, and also
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Speaker 2 (00:18):
By Tons Appliances, by.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Always Safe Blagging and Traffic Control, by Greater Pittsburgh Community
Food Bank, by Schneider Downs, by Hostage, Steak and Seahouse,
by your Neighborhood Forward Store, by Castle Rock, by Clearview
Federal Credit Union, and by us Steel.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Back inside the locker room here as we returned to
the campus of Saint Vincent College for hour number two
of the drive, Rob King, as you heard, off to
fulfill some baseball responsibles. So you've got myself and Max
Starks here for the final morning hour of our programming
here of course up until lunch hour. Then you will
have Bob Labriola and Tom Opperman with two hours of
(01:04):
the training camp report. So it might be a Sunday,
but there is plenty going on here and that feels right.
I mean, this is a sport that is played on Sunday.
We should be out here on Sunday ready for the
regular season doing football.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Football, guys, doing football like activities.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I still need pads though.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I mean, but do you like are you I mean
you're probably this is probably enough like football related activity
for you now, right, Or do you have the urge
to get back out there and hit somebody.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I mean, you always want to hit somebody, it's just
whether it's legal or not exactly, you know.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
I mean, you never truly ever get rid of the
edge to play. But I will say this and well
and Wolf, I'll never forget the first time I was
doing sidelines.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
You know, Wolf was like trying to coach me up
on like on side.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
He's like he's like, Max, you know, rule number one
you are no longer a player.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Rule number two.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
You cannot cross the white lines until the game is over.
And then rule number three is you are not an
active player. Because because even for Wolf, like you know,
because because you know, we talked about it and of
course he shared over these airwaves over the years. You
know that moment where he found himself like edging to
(02:24):
the white line like.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Someone would take a cheap shot at Ben or something
like helmet, I gotta get out.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Oh there's a dust up, And he's like he's like, yeah, wait,
a say, hold on.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
I don't have helmet, I don't have pads. I'm like,
wait to say, I gotta I gotta dial it back.
You know, I got a microphone. I mean, now, granted
that could be a blunt force object you could use,
but when guys have helmets on, it's pretty pretty neutralized, like,
you know, unless you're like.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Like you're trying to stick somebody in the face with
the microphone.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Oh god, I got I got muffy, you know what
I'm saying, Like, that's about as far as you get,
and then you know, you get you get steamrolled. But yeah,
I do have those moments. And and when I watched
them hit with pads on, it reminds me why I'm retired, uh,
and why I'm called a former player not an active player,
because I mean, you look at the athletes now, you know,
(03:11):
you talk about the toughness, you know, when you think
about the seventies teams, right, it's just a pure grit
and just ultimate just physicality that they played with. And
then you look at the eighties, right, you know that
was that was definitely the next evolution. Was was big,
puffed up, humongous muscle guys with massive pads exactly, with
(03:32):
humongous shoulder pads and very little padding and and and
and the uh in the cranial zone.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yes, and then you get to like the Nines.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
In the course two thousands, we were just we were
walking redwoods like in my era, you know, because I
was not the tallest player in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I was that was not the biggest either.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
So I had the combination, but I was not a
siloed in either one of those categories. I was a
combination because you had the Jonathan Ogden, had the Aaron Gilberts,
you know, you had the Walter Jones, the Orlando Paces
and Flozell Adams and all these humongous guys Willie Roafe,
(04:11):
and you're just one of during my era, one of
the redwoods.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
And now you've you've trimmed, You've trimmed those trees and
now you have big, solid human being.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You look at a.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
Darnell Washington, a dk Metcalf and you're like, holy, you
play what position like? You're not an offensive lineman.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You're not.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
You can move you could move that fast and do
all of those things. I mean, Jalen Ramsey even, I
mean when you look at him for a corner slash safety.
That's a big body, you know, and a big athlete.
I'll never forget. We talked about this, you know when
he came out of FSU, he was the number one
corner and the number one safety.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
In the draft.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
You know.
Speaker 5 (04:52):
It's like we talk about like Travis Hunter, right slash
number one DP. But Jalen Ramsey was the number one
guy on the same side of the ball at two
different positions.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
On a team he won a national on a team
that won a national championship. I mean it was Jameis
Winston on the offensive side of the football and.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Jalen Ramsey on the defensive and Jalen.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Took over a game just as easily as Jamis did.
And so it was like, yeah, you know, you saw
the pedigree he had, like Iron Matthew like just knows.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
For the ball in physicality.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So rare to see a defensive back be able to
affect a game like that and not a pass rusher,
not a running back, not a quarterback.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
And he didn't turn down tackles, you know, like today's
there you know some DB's like I don't know, you know,
cut tackle, you know, hey, getting his way. No, Jalen
Ramsey wanted to see the whites of your eyes and
run through you. I mean, that's what makes him such
an effective blitzer. I mean, you know, two days ago
they were running through drills and he blissed off the
slot and it was like, oh, yep, oh, this is
(05:53):
gonna be a fun thing.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
You'll watching the season. He's quick, he's shifting.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
He is shifty, and he didn't mind taking on an
offensive tackle. He was going against Troy Fautanu and you know,
and and definitely got close to Aaron in those moments,
and you say, hey, you know that's a guy that
when it's.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Not Aaron, it's not your teammate. I wonder what happens
when when the when the ball.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
Rolls out there between the right lines and you got
the zebras walking around like that, that's.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Either hunting on the serengetti essentially open here man exactly so.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
But yeah, but it was, you know, but it was
a fun time, you know, to see that, And it's
just it's the evolution of the game, right, you know,
you have to do it in different ways. I mean,
we also talked about last night of time. We're like, yeah,
that was a stress. We were like the most penalized team.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
In the league. We definitely left some wins out there.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
You like told the joke like it's like the like
waiting for the FedEx envelope.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Monday Monday was it was like that was a big
day because you were like, how many guys got fined
that we didn't hear about in the game, right, right?
And then the affection of what you did do in
the game as well, So it was like twofold and you.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Sitting here like, man, dang it, did I grab his
face mask too hard? I'm like, I know I grabbed him,
but was it that bad? And then you sit there,
you're walking to your locker, You're like, you see fed
x fed x X. You just like all of it
says you know from Fifth Avenue, NFL Roger. Yeah, You're
like like, ah, no, another.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
Thirty five hundred, hey, and you don't have to cut
that check. They just take it out of your check.
You see your pace, that's right. You see the dutches,
and you're just like.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
It's like they're garnishing your wages out.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Here exactly exactly. It's like, yeah, this this this is
called human support, not.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Child support, shield.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Support exactly, widows and orphans fun.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Oh man, listen you guys, but you you know you
and it was too this is something yesterday Lab sat
down with with Williamson and I to talk about the
Hall of Honor guys and talking we're talking about psy
you know, at one portion, and then that turned into
just a how rich the embarrassment of wealth that the
(08:06):
Steelers have had at the edge rusher outside linebacker, however
you wanted to you know, label it at that time
position group, And so that evolved into conversations about, Okay,
you know, if you can have your all time ultimate
edge rushers, you want.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Debo and DJ, you want Kevin Green.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
And Jason Kildet, you know what I mean, just having
one of those fun conversations. And in the the Deebo
portion of being brought into that labs was like, you know,
people a lot of times now, like revisionist history will
say Debo was a dirty player, but what they don't
remember is like, it's not his fault.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
The NFL changed the rules in the middle of the season.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah, exactly before the NFL did that, he had never
had a personal foul penalty in his career, so It
was like he was playing this way, winning Defensive Player
of the Year awards, playing this way, and then all
of a sudden, here comes the player safety initiative because
of your guys group, and here comes all these FedEx envelopes.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
I mean, you have to look no further than ask
multiple Cleveland Brown, Muhammad Massaquat Cooy and even god, who
is his teammate at Kent State play quarterback slash like receiver.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
It wasn't Josh Cribs.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
No, that wasn't Cribs. Yeah, Cribs, thank you for remoding.
I mean that they were. They were teammates at one
point in their life and you wouldn't know. But the
same thing with Troy and Carson, right, you know, those guys.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Were roommates in college, like I was on my official
visit and Carson and Troy are roommates at USC and
you're like, and what he did to Carson and terrorized
Carson throughout his whole time in Cincinnati. You know, you
would think they never met each other, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
They would you would think somebody knew the back of
his hand, baby exactly. So I mean so, but that
but that's just what we did, Like you weren't teammates
of mine anymore. Like i'll talk to you after the game.
I'll talk to you before the game.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
But when we're when we're doing battle for those sixty
legalized minutes, and we obviously know takes about three and
a half hours to get through sixty minutes, I don't
know you. Now.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
You're not my former Gator teammate. You're a for those
sixty minutes. You're a Cincinnati Bengal exactly. You're a Baltimore
Raven or you're a Buffalo Bill.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Unless you are an opponent of mine, like David Pollock,
you know, from University of Georgia Winter, then I.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Think it's a double. Then it's a double.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, it's a double hate thing.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
But but yeah, no, I don't know you. A Keiwan
Ratlift like one of my one of my close buddies
in college. We were drafted both in the class oh four.
He's a He was a punt returner, you know, in
dB for Cincinnati. I was like, Rat, if you come
off the edge, I'm going to kill you. And guess
how many times he blitsed off my side? Zero zero
because he knew I would kill Alex Brown Alex Brownie,
(10:42):
I used to do battle when we played Chicago, you know,
every four years.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I don't know, I don't know you. I don't know
you are you were number thirteen for the Chicago Bears.
I don't know you as Alex.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Brown and even could go deeper than that, like the
Kelsey Brothers.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah exactly, you know.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Things like in those type of situations like that's great,
but I'm trying to win a football game. Yeah, this
is you know, they both play offense, so it's not
like they were out on the field at the same time.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
They weren't directly doing bad.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
But you know mom is wearing is wearing the torn
jersey right, you know down the middle, half half of
one for each boy. There's no half seas here. It's
like we're playing for keeps.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Playing for keeps.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
I want to sit down at Thanksgiving dinner and look
across and be like a.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Gotcha, Uh, John's got it on Jim Harbaugh forever.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, I beat you.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I mean it's been what twelve years now, but like
I beat you in the Super Bowl, Bro, exactly what
else happened?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Unless you come back and beat me.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
You got a national championship for you.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
You know what's funny now, is like saying, there's a
scenario where the Chargers and the Ravens play in the
AFC Championship game, right, and Jim gets his revenge, But
not really the AFC championship games, not the super Bowl.
I got you in the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I beat you in the biggest moment. You got to
go back to the NFC if you want this, because
I'm not moving because I'm King of the hill in
the house. So you're gonna have to go back somewhere else.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Cute little national championship.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
Right that Lah, that la job works for you, But
you're not playing for the Rams, Bud, you know, you're
not coaching that team. You're coaching on my side of
the ball. And guess who's a contender every year. That's right,
That's exactly right. You're trying to get where I am.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
You're trying to build West Coast Baltimore.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
You know what I mean, literally Red Rover like the
staff and personnel.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Guys and style of play that they're trying.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
To get hand players, you know, So I mean, yeah,
there's definitely a synergy there, but yeah, I mean, but
that but and that's the great bloodline stories of the NFL,
no doubt you know, when you have his family.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
I mean, that's one of the slogans of the league, right,
it should say underneath though in like small parentheses, until
it's not football is family.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Not until you see each other across.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Till it's not for sixty minutes on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Is that I don't know you Then it becomes hat
fields in the McCloy's right.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
And then when the whistle's done, all right, come on,
let's let's take.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
A picture like, yeah, well, what will memorialize this moment?
Come on, come on, who's the winner? Who's the winner?
By the way, smile bigger.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
That's right. One of you have to look miserable. One
of you has to be smiling right now for this
to really hit home.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Yeah ah man, but yeah, but I mean, but that's
the beauty of this game, man. And it's and it's
one that is that is you physically can affect the outcome. Right,
there's not one of those where you just look at
paper and make a decision absolutely, you know, And that's
why I think, you know, even with the advent of
how much technology, analytics, and you know, for better or worse,
(13:31):
the gambling aspect of it, and even not necessarily from
a monetary standpoint.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
But there's more.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
There's more information, so much data points to assess, yeah,
to consume and and make it make your own type
of correlation that you know, at the end of the day,
you could put.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
All of the stats, you can put the perfect roster together.
It doesn't matter. It's a people game.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
It's how well does that group over there mesh together
to go up against this group over there that's meshing together.
And then the unspoken type of rules of rhythm and
choreography that go on with it.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And that's what makes this game so exciting.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
It's the ultimate team sport when we have that many
people geared towards one goal and everybody's fighting to get
to the top of the mountain. But there can only
be one like the Highlander, right.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
There can only be one Highlander, that's right.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
So so, I mean, so it's fun and that's why
we love this game. And I think you know, hopefully
you know, Steelers Nation, y'all could hear that when you
listen to our broadcast, right, there's a pure passion.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And love and respect for this game.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
And you know, and you have to be able to laugh, right,
you have to be able to laugh. You have to
be able to have the good moments. You know, when
we were talking about we were on air in the
last segment, you know, Wes was pointed to me because
one person tried to buck tried to buck the trend
because you know, full insight here for if you haven't been.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Here, inside base inside baseball.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Inside baseball, you have a decision to make when you
go to the turf field field number four, that's the
one closest to the street when you come out here.
One that's not close to the grand stand. So for
us it's like eagle eye view.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yes, sea field that's kind of adjacent to the sude here.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
You got to make two decisions. We come out for
walk through. You can either go straight or you can
go left. Going straight indicates I gotta walk down the steps,
I gotta walk down, I gotta walk down the hill
and then walk across the field flat land right, but
you gotta make it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Down the concrete hill in cleats correct.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
So the walkah walk another one hundred and twenty yards
right and then down a little hump or you can
take a path of least resistance and you can just
make the left right out of the locker room and
walk down the paved road that has a nice gentle decline,
and then you can get to the steps and then
hop over the little FedEx sign you know of the partitions,
(15:55):
and then boom, you're right there. But then every once
in a while salmon tries to swim up. Someone's like,
you know what, I'm gonna go half season this. So
you there's a midpoint. And from our view, if you're
looking from the press box or the stands out to
the fields, you get right past the Saint Vincent hedges
(16:15):
and there's this little strip, little short of land, a
little short cut where you could cut through almost like
ring posts, right, you know over there with the with
the uh, with the with the rope fence. Yep, you
can and you can hit like a grassier. But I
would say it is a steep step.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It's not as.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Gradual as the other two options. Little but you shorten
your time to get to the field.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Correct, So it steps higher risk?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yes? Is it high risk high reward? Right?
Speaker 5 (16:46):
You know, but if you don't have your you know,
if you don't have your Apple watch or whatever other
product that you use as a step counter. You know
what matters. Right, A young gentleman that we all know
has been in the headlines, you know, positive guy, you know,
having fun, great relationship he's building with Aaron Rodgers, decides
to take the size it sized it to buck the
(17:07):
trend and he gets what about halfway halfway down that
hill and then it is bombs away.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
It was like a cartoon like, yeah, right on, right
on the right, on the back side.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
And mind you, it's been it's been raining all morning.
Here grass in that hill is not dry. Is where
we're going with this?
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Yes, and hence the tail of soggy bottoms.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
And so one of the Steelers wide receivers found himself
as a soggy bottom boy. Yes, headed down to practice
because he slipped. And yeah, the Steelers his teammates let
him know that immediately on what you what's gonna happen there?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Exactly?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
You asked for that one.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
It happened like what what? What's what was old boy
from the Simpsons? Yeah, exactly, the bully I forgot his
day slipped my mind right now, But that's what happens.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
I mean, those are the funny things that were like
you know, observation. We we get, we get an nice
little kind of cranes cranes roost.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Type of view to be able to take that in.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
And now is something he thought was only for his
teammates and him is now up for public assumption. So
now you get to play the wars waldo of who
became Soggy Bottom boy?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
If you so.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Desire, that's right, Yeah, we we we We will neither
confirm nor deny.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Yeah, who the culprit.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Was, we will not. But if you do ask us,
we will tell you. But you have to ask us.
That's that's just simply how it is. And you can't
and do not try and tweet me or X message.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Yeah, not on social media.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
You have to do it in person. We're not going
to out the guy on social media. But if you
do come up to me during practice you see me
walking down the hill or something and you say, hey, Max,
who's soggy bottom boy? I might answer your question. Okay,
just put that out there, little little steel.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
The number.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, yeah, we could do that as well. So yeah,
but yeah, that that is that that is our little secret.
That's that's the treasure hunt. Nugget of the day. Gotta
love it.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
That's why you tune in here to Stealers Station Radio,
because nobody overs training camp and brings you all the
details like we do on your twenty four to seven
home of the Black and the Gold. Max Starks and
I have two more segments to go here. We'll continue
to talk a little bit about walk through the final
day here of this acclamation period before the guys get
a day off tomorrow one fifty five practice. Although if
(19:17):
you look at the weather report, we'll see because there's
supposed to be some some weather in the area around two.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Again, though it's much like living in Florida. Go Gators.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
If you don't like how the weather looks here, just
wait about twenty thirty minutes because it'll change. Something will
be something will be different. So we'll keep you updated
on all of that as we roll along here in
the eleven o'clock hour on day number four of our
training camp coverage on Steelers Nation Radio on the Steelers
Audio Network.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Iheartradios. Live coverage ob Not twenty twenty five Steelers Training
Camp is presented by FATX where Now meets Next and
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One Call System, by Live Casino, Caliente Pizza and Draft House,
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(20:13):
We Max Select Realty, the Pittsburgh Steelers Pro Shot, and
by us steel.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Back on campus here Saint Vincent College. As we roll
along in the locker room, West Shooler and Max starts
with you for about another half hour twenty five minutes
or so here before we turn things over to Bob
Labriola and Tom Opperman for the training camp report. Of course,
our coverage ongoing all day until five o'clock, we bring
you seven hours straight of live programming here on SNR
(20:45):
every single day that there is Steelers practice.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Tomorrow will be the first break day of Camp Max.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
And so with that, for those of you who follow
along at home and know how this process goes, that
means today is the last of the acclamation period practices, yay.
The last of the football and shorts and helmets practices yeay.
And we are all very excited for that. Saturday, the
first day is the first day.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
It's fun, it's exciting. We're back. Who cares? We're back?
This is awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
This is great Saturday.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
That first Saturday is usually really cool too, because it's
the welcome back to Football day, it's the Hall of
Honor Day, first weekend practice, which always brings a sizeable crowd.
It's Saturday, you know, you get a lot of people.
You know, there's a lot of people out here every day,
but especially on the weekends.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Networks Network Kyle Brands.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Down on the field, PAS and Mike Tomlin are taking
the microphones and talking to the crowd. But today is
kind of the first time that I think you're really like,
all right, let's get through with this. Let's get the pads,
let's get the Friday night lights, let's get to all
the fun stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
We're now thirteen days away from the first preseason game.
It's getting here closer and closer. So what's the onus today?
What's the message? What's the mentality? Last day of this
acclamation period, last day before we put the pads on
and this gets real hot and heavy.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
What's today kind of like for these guys?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
The day is fast and efficient.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Okay, that's really the key for today because you now
know what it feels like to go through individual you know,
what it is to go through these team periods. You
know how to do work and how the Steelers do work,
because that's the other thing you're also acclimating, you know,
forty three new guys to the Stealer way of doing
(22:29):
business here at training camp. Right, you got to know
where to be and what to do. Now it's like,
show me that you know those two things. So now
we can move into the how and the woe. I'm
not eve gonna say why say the how and the
woe woe because you listen. Once you get those pads
on the drills, pick up expeditiously, and now you have
(22:54):
the one on one mono E monophysical drills. Right, we
have the dB stalk drill that will happen right along
the sidelines, along along the bleachers where DB's and DB's
and y receivers as we remember Joey Porter Junior and
George Pickens.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Going at it right, so much fun, epic, epic battles.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
And then you have linebackers versus versus running backs and
tight end and that's when you get to see that's
where we learned about Jalen Warren, right, and this is
where the camp phenoms start to start to pick up.
I know, I had a couple of a couple of
our listeners, uh you know, hit me, hit me on
the x bot and say, hey, Max, when are we
going to do Camp Pinos.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
That's a fighter that's later.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
We got to get pads on because look like Tarzan,
play like Jane stages.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
It's a real thing.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
And so once you get the paths on, then we
could talk about camp phenoms and that happens on the
backs on backers drill, that happens on the wide receiver
safety dB drill, and then that happens on the O line,
D line, one on one pass rush drill.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Even just like team period and seven shots. Being able
to see real Russia temple, you know what I mean
live tackling to the ground really.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
Did stop you, you know, and you didn't quite you know.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
It was a two hand touch and I kind of I.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Kind of would that have gone for four yards or
forty yards? I can't tell because they're not tackling to.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
The ground exactly. So so that's where it picks up
another notch. And that's when you get the real evaluation period.
And then of course we get to Friday night lights
and that is its own scrimmage like situation, and it
gives you the first team like real team football approach.
And then you get to the first preseason game. So
(24:37):
we have all these little mini milestones and many mile markers.
I guess I should say I shouldn't go on milestones,
many mile markers that let you know how you're progressing,
not only as a team, but as you get through
camp and everything. And the great Bob Labriola let us
know that he has signed him for duty already.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
He's ready to rock and roll. He shows up past
the time the rest of us.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
We all show up, you know, about a minute before
we go on air.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I literally show up, usually a minute down the hill.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
The intro sounder is playing.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, in roll the headset up because.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Labs twenty five minutes early.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
We'll talk about a pro Yeah, I mean, I mean
that that's that's the guy that has seen a lot
of ball and he knows, he knows what, he knows
what the modus operandi is. That's right, and he ain't
early or late exactly. And yep, I guess I'm late
all the time.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Labs also very well versed in American sign language. Yes
as well, you know, but uh, but but it is.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
One of those things that you kind of look at
it and where this is the day where it's fast,
it needs to be a fish and he's look clean.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
So it means you.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Better not be making the same mistakes you were making
on Thursday exactly this.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Mistakes day one, you know, are no harm, no foul,
But mistakes day four, it's like, hey, son, you know
you might want to consider a new job profession if
this is what you're going to continually do.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
You start to have those big boy conversation I think
I love for a lot of guys as well. It's
like I can't really show what I can do until
I have pads on, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
You know, if you're a tackler, I was gonna say,
especially if you play like a non athletic based I mean,
if you're not on the outsides, you know what I mean,
like that defensive back or a wide receiver.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Where it's a skill finessed technique type of approach. And
there is still skill and technique obviously with the other positions.
But I can't evaluate an offensive lineman or a defensive
lineman until pads are on, because every every rep they're
gonna tell you I got a sack or and every
line was gonna say I blocked that guy and there's
no way he's getting to the quarterback or to the
running back. But when you put pads on, you find
(26:30):
out is that really true or not? So I always
reserve my judge.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
That's why when people, hey, Max, man, what do you
think about camp so far? You know you get that
question all the time. I'm like, it's good, nobody's.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
Injured, Like that's that's the only thing I can tell you,
Like the like, the injury report's pretty clean.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Ball zips off. Aaron Rodgers hands, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Like an interception, that first intercept. I'm like, dude, why
are we counting this?
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Like like, well, that's two interceptions now so far.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
My media stat tracker says, in practice, you know that
you're not. I'm like, man, no, this is the place
if you're going to make mistakes. And I love that
Aaron addressed this when they asked him about it. He's like, yeah,
I'm gonna throw interceptions. He's like, glad I got that
out the way, because unlike a lot of other people,
(27:17):
like Aaron Rodgers knows what training camp is and he's
been to twenty of them, you know, and.
Speaker 7 (27:22):
He's like a new team and language, and I have
to know what I can and can't do physically without
there being a penalty.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Guess where that is?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Training, can't practice.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
So you're gonna see some ooh's, some ohs, and some
ugh you know along the way.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
But that's what this is for. This is the place
where I get to do stupid things. And see what.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
We're talking about talking about part not the practice, not
the game, not the game where I go out there
and die for the team, not the.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Game exactly exactly, talk about practice practice. It's like I'm
supposed to miss. I'm not.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
If I come out here and do one hundred percent
at everything and I don't fail.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Guess what that means. I need to pick a different
job exactly right. When I become infallible and anything in life,
it's time to pivot, because that means I'm or some
of these guys severely wrong or right. If I can't miss.
You have to be able to do that, and in
this sport especially, and you have the greatest You have
(28:26):
an awesome like canvas to work with to paint your picture,
no doubt, So why not try and see if I
can blend this color blend together.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Can I short stroke a throw and see if it
still gets there in this tight window? Can Can I
take an aggressive, aggressive jump set against TJ.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Watt?
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Even though I know it's a no, I'm still gonna
try it because I'm not gonna get TJ. Watt seventeen
weeks in a row, right, I'm gonna get different body type.
So I need to feel comfortable with what that footwork
looks like.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And a guy like him will show me how efficient
or inefficient I am with that? Was I over my toes?
Speaker 5 (29:02):
Was I set too deep in my heels and I
couldn't pivot? Like you have to learn all of this
stuff so that you can go deploy it on game
day because these are not the same bodies I'm gonna see.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I'm gonna see similar. You're never gonna see the same
unless you get traded to another team and you play
the Steelers twice. Like this information is for me to
get better against different competition, and I'm preparing for the field,
not for the guys on the field right now.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Well, said Max Starks, I've been it is it's it's
everyone is starved.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
For football.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Everyone needs their football fix and and they're living it
out in six seconds social media clips exactly, so like,
I get it. It's part of the nature of the beast.
I was laughing at this yesterday or Friday, Like there
was this one again, six or seven second clip of
Caleb Williams in a in a in a rep for
the Chicago Bears and his receiver goes left and he
(29:56):
throws it right.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah, I mean you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
it's like miss.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
And every Chicago Bears aggregator is like, oh, man.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Can't believe he's still doing this. Oh my god, where listen.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
And I'm not saying it's gonna work out for Caleb
Williams or not, but it's not gonna be based off
that one throw on his second day of training camp
with a brand new coaching staff and offense and system
that he's trying to learn as a second.
Speaker 5 (30:19):
Year guy, exactly as the second year guy that's now
had his second system in two years.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
If Caleb Williams does wash out and never becomes what
he has the potential to be, people, it's not gonna
be like, oh, because.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
You couldn't make that throw in training camp but remember.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
That play on July twenty third, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yep, that was the end of his career. Guys, No,
it's not going to be that.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
It's gonna be we can't beat the Green Bay Packers,
you know, or the Minnesota Vice or the Detroit Lions,
and I and we and we've never won a division title.
That's what's going to get him a ceremoniously exited. It's
not gonna be him missing a throw when DJ Moore
cuts left and he goes and he throws right.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Oh the rain is now coming.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
I was just gonna say in the last about too much.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Halla has opened up.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Valhalla has opened We are in our you.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Know again, Thor alone. Don't let Thor come out.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
And of course it's like right as they're getting ready
to open up campus too, and you see all the
cars and the people starting to gather, and now a
bunch of the people are jogging on the sidewalk here
trying to get to.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
One of the cafeterias. Is going to make our lunch
run a little bit more precarious.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
I was a little worried about that.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
I was. I was really hoping it was gonna hold
out to like twelve ten.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
You know what the this is another one of those
like like when Rob King laughs at you when you're
showing technique for an offensive lineman and he's like, you know,
this is radio, Like nobody can.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
See us rights, but we could.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
I'm zipping open my backpack and I have in here
a big shout out to Arthur Nathan Motes.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Okay, this is from his.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Golf outing this summer, a little a little a little
motzy charity outing rain jacket that I got here in
my backpack so that might come in handy for lunch here.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Yeah, that'll help you, It won't help me. So thanks
for thanks, Thanks for being a team player there.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
You know what, I could just actually like probably walk
behind you or.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
Can you know, I could lift you up over my
head usually as like a tar.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
I to jack it up, and I'm like, we gotta
get to our last break. When we come back. We'll
keep you posted on everything going on here. Walk through,
still going on in the rain. Hey, as long as
it's not thunder and lightning in the area. Right Tom
likes this.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Right now, let's get some let's get some work down
the round.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
I want to see how pissed off you get exactly,
how annoyed can you get and still function?
Speaker 4 (32:24):
How uncomfortable can I make you?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Exactly? Do not seek comfort?
Speaker 3 (32:28):
It is It's like one of those It's like one
of those crossovers when we talk about the military and
football teams, like we are trying to make you uncomfortable,
we are trying to stress you out.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
And you know, I thought it was funny before we
go to break, Kyle Brandt actually took like some of
the tomlinisms and he had Mike Tomlin explain them on air,
that the top five Tomlinisms and Mike t was so
gracious to to to explain all of those.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
It was on NFL. It was. It was a great
little segment there.
Speaker 4 (32:53):
Kyle does great with that stuff.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
Yeah, he's a very good We're his second favorite team
because we know there's a Buffalo he's a Buffalo guy, right,
But he loves the Steelers. I mean he wore the
JB Super Bowl forty.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Yes, some Jerome bettis.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
Someone on yep. But yeah, so yeah, let's go to break.
Let's go to break. We'll be back.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
We will be back here. We'll bring you the final segment.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
As now, the guys are running for the locker room
as it's really starting to come down here, Uh, final
segment of in the Locker Room when we return on
the other side before we turn things over well Schuler
Max starks, it's all happening here at Saint Vincent College,
part of Training Camp twenty twenty five on Steelers Nation
Radio on a Steelers Audio.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Network Iheartradios Live coverage job not twenty twenty five Steelers
Training Camp. He's presented by Fadex where now meets Next
and also brought to you by CGR Wholesale Roofing and
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(33:51):
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four In stored by Castle Rod, by Clearview Federal Credit Unit,
and by us Steal.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Final few minutes of in the Locker Room here on
day number four of training camp. As we've mentioned a
few times, the last acclamation period practice for the Steelers
before the pads go on on Tuesday and things really
get ramped up next week and look at that, I
mean we go to commercial break and it is raining
cats and dogs.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Now it's just a light drizzle.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, it's just it's just cat.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
It's just cat.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yeah, we don't even we don't get to the t
it's just c.
Speaker 5 (34:34):
So now it's just a nice, consistent drizzle that's happening.
But like you, like you said it, Hey, if you
don't like the weather, wait twenty to thirty minutest or
just wait one commercial break and.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
You'll be to walk to lunch.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So you and I we were joking a little bit
about our buddy Matt Williamson during break there and all
the statistical breakdown stuff that he does for us. He
just sent me an eighteen page preview packet on with
twenty twenty five Steelers. He's a maniac, and I mean
that in the best way possible. But here's one of
the things that I found interesting that I want to
pick your brain for four or five minutes.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Before we get out of here.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Pittsburgh's offensive line last year allowed pressure in two and
a half seconds or less on twenty five percent of
quarterback dropbacks. That's twenty seventh in the league, bottom bottom five.
Not great, But Matt's point is one I think Aaron
Rodgers will help with that with his game brain pre
snap yes, and his help to diagnose and confuse a defense.
(35:28):
And two, the Steelers had the third highest the third
best average of time to pressure.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
So what Matt's point in saying that is.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
A lot of the reason why was because Wilson and
Field's holding the ball for too long, something that Aaron
Rodgers isn't gonna do either.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
No, he's not gonna do and decisiveness is gonna change drastically.
And you know, the other thing is is, you know,
you talk about arm talent and armed strength.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Obviously Justin Feel's.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Had plenty of arm strength, but the arm talent was lacking.
And Russell had plenty of arm talent but didn't have
the arm string. Right, So that's what leads on holding
the football. Well, Aaron has both, and you know, and
we've seen and we have case study after case study
that we can throw out there right of him doing
(36:16):
clutch things and clutch moments and knowing what the temperature
is throughout the course of a game and how to
buy time and when he needs it. But also he
knows how to alleviate that pressure and and and help
your buddy out so to speak. And I think that, yeah,
you're right. I mean there's a great stat you talk about.
Time to pressure is always a key thing because how
(36:36):
much time does a quarterback have to.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Process before that first decision has to be made or
not made? And you know, and then of course, you
know you talk about you know, the whole total pressure
rate of under three seconds.
Speaker 5 (36:50):
Three seconds is an eternity, eternity for an offensive lineman.
And I think people are like, but it was only
three sod. I'm like, listen, when you have a human being.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Burrow was getting that ball out in one point nine seconds,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (37:03):
Forget three Well, and I remember a stat when they
were talking about like Ben and Aaron were both like
oh their tours at the bottom of the league and
and and holding on to the remember that it was
I want to say it was like oh nine to
like twelve, like oh, it's the third longest release and
blah blah blah blah blah. But I'm like, but they're
doing things with that. It's not there standing static like
(37:25):
like like the statue of Liberty back there. Granted we
did have a San Francisco game. I won't talk about
that one where Ben was injured and I'm playing and
we're like, like, not not against San Francisco, Please don't please,
Oh god, he's back there.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
You know he can't. They got all this Smith and
Justice running in the T game and holding the living
daylights out of us on a twist. Oh my god.
It was it was horrible.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Was that? Like was that like Patrick Willis Navarro Bowman
Era two or not?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yes? No, there, They're the everybody on there. It was
like it was like, holy crap. Is it. It's almost
like you're the dog catcher and you run into a
group of feral dogs, like a pack of them, and
you only have like two of those little post noose things,
and but you've got twelve dogs like barreling down a
(38:14):
you you just say, oh god, can I kick one?
Can I slap over a bowl before I put it on?
You know? I mean, it was like it was like,
good God.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
I was like, I remember I had and I had
to make this interception tackle on Carlos Rogers.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
And I was sitting there. I was like like, I'm like,
oh god, and I thank god I made a form
tackle on him.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
But I was like, if not, he was going to
the house. But it was like outside of those moments,
you know, quarterbacks are trying to manipulate the defense with
their feet, and none better than Ben. I mean, Ben
would shrug off three sacks, do a spin.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Move on like Terrell Suggs too, not on some like
defensive back.
Speaker 5 (38:50):
B Yeah from Yah Dwight Freeny. Right, you're escaping the
clutches of like Hall of Famers.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Guys who were top ten, top twenty all time in
league sack totals.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
So, I mean, so you know, there's like context within
a stat, but I think the general stat is showing.
What Matt was trying to show is that Yeah, I
was like, not all of these are to cut the same,
and your quarterback can do things to help that stat,
and that'll be the advantage of Aaron Rodgers versus previous
iteration quarterback position guys over the last three years. That
(39:20):
will make that look a lot different and also help
a young forming offensive line.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
And I know as an offensive lineman, I don't need
to tell you this, but that's why we talk about
There's there's sacks where offensive lineman just get beat, but
there's also coverage sacks.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
There's also quarterbacks at.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
Hustle plays by the defense, yep, And I think that's
where you have to kind of delineate. You can't say, oh,
pre snap, that was Max's guy, and Max's guy made
the play.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
First of all, did he twist?
Speaker 4 (39:47):
And a half seconds later?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Did he twist?
Speaker 5 (39:50):
Three and a half second I ran the hoop like
I'm supposed to, meaning running, I got ten yards deep,
creating an opportunity for the quarterback to either step up
or step out, because you create that gap and then
does a quarterback stay you know one of the things,
and you know he's not here, But I still talked
about it on the airwaves. When you turn over your
(40:10):
throwing shoulder and spin out, you lose the defense. Now
he has to reorient himself totally. And that's one of
the things that I just hated. I hated about Russ
I'd say hate that strong word. I disliked about his
game was that when pressure fell, he would spin off
of his right shoulder, right leg, and you lose the
defense as opposed to pivoting back with your left foot,
(40:32):
keeping your body open, your eyes down field.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
And escaping that way.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
So the spin pivot would lose it and then he
couldn't ide where the guys were because he's a shorter
quarterback and you got to reorientate.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Was when he was twenty second exactly. So that's a
that's another about three quarters to a second and a
half that you have to account for and getting the
ball out.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
So, like I said, not all stats are the same,
not all sacks are the same, but that stat there
lets you know that when you have the higher IQ
guy who still has the skill set to go with it,
it makes for a better day for your offensive production.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
This weather clear and up, we'll hopefully make for a
better day here in Lake tro But that'll do it
for Max and I this morning on this edition of
In the Locker Room. But still five straight hours of
coverage to come here on Steelers Nation Radio with Tom
Opperman and Bob Labriola and the Training camp report up next.
Take care, everybody, we'll talk to you soon. You have
been in the Locker Room on your twenty four to
(41:29):
seven home of the Black and Gold at Steelers Nation
Radio on the Steelers Audio Network.
Iheartradios. Live coverage of twenty twenty five Steelers training Camp
is presented by FedEx where Now meets Next, and also
brought to you by CGR Wholesale, Roofing and Siding Supply Center.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
By Tons Appliances, by.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Always Safe Blagging and Traffic Control, by Greater Pittsburgh Community
Food Bank, by Schneider Downs, by Hostage, Steak and Seahouse,
by your Neighborhood Forward Store, by Castle Rock, by Clearview
Federal Credit Union, and by us Steel.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Back inside the locker room here as we returned to
the campus of Saint Vincent College for hour number two
of the drive, Rob King, as you heard, off to
fulfill some baseball responsibles. So you've got myself and Max
Starks here for the final morning hour of our programming
here of course up until lunch hour. Then you will
have Bob Labriola and Tom Opperman with two hours of
(01:04):
the training camp report. So it might be a Sunday,
but there is plenty going on here and that feels right.
I mean, this is a sport that is played on Sunday.
We should be out here on Sunday ready for the
regular season doing football.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Football, guys, doing football like activities.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I still need pads though.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I mean, but do you like are you I mean
you're probably this is probably enough like football related activity
for you now, right, Or do you have the urge
to get back out there and hit somebody.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I mean, you always want to hit somebody, it's just
whether it's legal or not exactly, you know.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
I mean, you never truly ever get rid of the
edge to play. But I will say this and well
and Wolf, I'll never forget the first time I was
doing sidelines.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
You know, Wolf was like trying to coach me up
on like on side.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
He's like he's like, Max, you know, rule number one
you are no longer a player.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Rule number two.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
You cannot cross the white lines until the game is over.
And then rule number three is you are not an
active player. Because because even for Wolf, like you know,
because because you know, we talked about it and of
course he shared over these airwaves over the years. You
know that moment where he found himself like edging to
(02:24):
the white line like.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Someone would take a cheap shot at Ben or something
like helmet, I gotta get out.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Oh there's a dust up, And he's like he's like, yeah, wait,
a say, hold on.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
I don't have helmet, I don't have pads. I'm like,
wait to say, I gotta I gotta dial it back.
You know, I got a microphone. I mean, now, granted
that could be a blunt force object you could use,
but when guys have helmets on, it's pretty pretty neutralized, like,
you know, unless you're like.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Like you're trying to stick somebody in the face with
the microphone.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Oh god, I got I got muffy, you know what
I'm saying, Like, that's about as far as you get,
and then you know, you get you get steamrolled. But yeah,
I do have those moments. And and when I watched
them hit with pads on, it reminds me why I'm retired, uh,
and why I'm called a former player not an active player,
because I mean, you look at the athletes now, you know,
(03:11):
you talk about the toughness, you know, when you think
about the seventies teams, right, it's just a pure grit
and just ultimate just physicality that they played with. And
then you look at the eighties, right, you know that
was that was definitely the next evolution. Was was big,
puffed up, humongous muscle guys with massive pads exactly, with
(03:32):
humongous shoulder pads and very little padding and and and
and the uh in the cranial zone.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yes, and then you get to like the Nines.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
In the course two thousands, we were just we were
walking redwoods like in my era, you know, because I
was not the tallest player in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I was that was not the biggest either.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
So I had the combination, but I was not a
siloed in either one of those categories. I was a
combination because you had the Jonathan Ogden, had the Aaron Gilberts,
you know, you had the Walter Jones, the Orlando Paces
and Flozell Adams and all these humongous guys Willie Roafe,
(04:11):
and you're just one of during my era, one of
the redwoods.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
And now you've you've trimmed, You've trimmed those trees and
now you have big, solid human being.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You look at a.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
Darnell Washington, a dk Metcalf and you're like, holy, you
play what position like? You're not an offensive lineman.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You're not.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
You can move you could move that fast and do
all of those things. I mean, Jalen Ramsey even, I
mean when you look at him for a corner slash safety.
That's a big body, you know, and a big athlete.
I'll never forget. We talked about this, you know when
he came out of FSU, he was the number one
corner and the number one safety.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
In the draft.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
You know.
Speaker 5 (04:52):
It's like we talk about like Travis Hunter, right slash
number one DP. But Jalen Ramsey was the number one
guy on the same side of the ball at two
different positions.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
On a team he won a national on a team
that won a national championship. I mean it was Jameis
Winston on the offensive side of the football and.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Jalen Ramsey on the defensive and Jalen.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Took over a game just as easily as Jamis did.
And so it was like, yeah, you know, you saw
the pedigree he had, like Iron Matthew like just knows.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
For the ball in physicality.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So rare to see a defensive back be able to
affect a game like that and not a pass rusher,
not a running back, not a quarterback.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
And he didn't turn down tackles, you know, like today's
there you know some DB's like I don't know, you know,
cut tackle, you know, hey, getting his way. No, Jalen
Ramsey wanted to see the whites of your eyes and
run through you. I mean, that's what makes him such
an effective blitzer. I mean, you know, two days ago
they were running through drills and he blissed off the
slot and it was like, oh, yep, oh, this is
(05:53):
gonna be a fun thing.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
You'll watching the season. He's quick, he's shifting.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
He is shifty, and he didn't mind taking on an
offensive tackle. He was going against Troy Fautanu and you know,
and and definitely got close to Aaron in those moments,
and you say, hey, you know that's a guy that
when it's.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Not Aaron, it's not your teammate. I wonder what happens
when when the when the ball.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
Rolls out there between the right lines and you got
the zebras walking around like that, that's.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Either hunting on the serengetti essentially open here man exactly so.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
But yeah, but it was, you know, but it was
a fun time, you know, to see that, And it's
just it's the evolution of the game, right, you know,
you have to do it in different ways. I mean,
we also talked about last night of time. We're like, yeah,
that was a stress. We were like the most penalized team.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
In the league. We definitely left some wins out there.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
You like told the joke like it's like the like
waiting for the FedEx envelope.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Monday Monday was it was like that was a big
day because you were like, how many guys got fined
that we didn't hear about in the game, right, right?
And then the affection of what you did do in
the game as well, So it was like twofold and you.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Sitting here like, man, dang it, did I grab his
face mask too hard? I'm like, I know I grabbed him,
but was it that bad? And then you sit there,
you're walking to your locker, You're like, you see fed
x fed x X. You just like all of it
says you know from Fifth Avenue, NFL Roger. Yeah, You're
like like, ah, no, another.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
Thirty five hundred, hey, and you don't have to cut
that check. They just take it out of your check.
You see your pace, that's right. You see the dutches,
and you're just like.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
It's like they're garnishing your wages out.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Here exactly exactly. It's like, yeah, this this this is
called human support, not.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Child support, shield.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Support exactly, widows and orphans fun.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Oh man, listen you guys, but you you know you
and it was too this is something yesterday Lab sat
down with with Williamson and I to talk about the
Hall of Honor guys and talking we're talking about psy
you know, at one portion, and then that turned into
just a how rich the embarrassment of wealth that the
(08:06):
Steelers have had at the edge rusher outside linebacker, however
you wanted to you know, label it at that time
position group, And so that evolved into conversations about, Okay,
you know, if you can have your all time ultimate
edge rushers, you want.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Debo and DJ, you want Kevin Green.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
And Jason Kildet, you know what I mean, just having
one of those fun conversations. And in the the Deebo
portion of being brought into that labs was like, you know,
people a lot of times now, like revisionist history will
say Debo was a dirty player, but what they don't
remember is like, it's not his fault.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
The NFL changed the rules in the middle of the season.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah, exactly before the NFL did that, he had never
had a personal foul penalty in his career, so It
was like he was playing this way, winning Defensive Player
of the Year awards, playing this way, and then all
of a sudden, here comes the player safety initiative because
of your guys group, and here comes all these FedEx envelopes.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
I mean, you have to look no further than ask
multiple Cleveland Brown, Muhammad Massaquat Cooy and even god, who
is his teammate at Kent State play quarterback slash like receiver.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
It wasn't Josh Cribs.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
No, that wasn't Cribs. Yeah, Cribs, thank you for remoding.
I mean that they were. They were teammates at one
point in their life and you wouldn't know. But the
same thing with Troy and Carson, right, you know, those guys.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Were roommates in college, like I was on my official
visit and Carson and Troy are roommates at USC and
you're like, and what he did to Carson and terrorized
Carson throughout his whole time in Cincinnati. You know, you
would think they never met each other, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
They would you would think somebody knew the back of
his hand, baby exactly. So I mean so, but that
but that's just what we did, Like you weren't teammates
of mine anymore. Like i'll talk to you after the game.
I'll talk to you before the game.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
But when we're when we're doing battle for those sixty
legalized minutes, and we obviously know takes about three and
a half hours to get through sixty minutes, I don't
know you. Now.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
You're not my former Gator teammate. You're a for those
sixty minutes. You're a Cincinnati Bengal exactly. You're a Baltimore
Raven or you're a Buffalo Bill.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Unless you are an opponent of mine, like David Pollock,
you know, from University of Georgia Winter, then I.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Think it's a double. Then it's a double.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, it's a double hate thing.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
But but yeah, no, I don't know you. A Keiwan
Ratlift like one of my one of my close buddies
in college. We were drafted both in the class oh four.
He's a He was a punt returner, you know, in
dB for Cincinnati. I was like, Rat, if you come
off the edge, I'm going to kill you. And guess
how many times he blitsed off my side? Zero zero
because he knew I would kill Alex Brown Alex Brownie,
(10:42):
I used to do battle when we played Chicago, you know,
every four years.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I don't know, I don't know you. I don't know
you are you were number thirteen for the Chicago Bears.
I don't know you as Alex.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Brown and even could go deeper than that, like the
Kelsey Brothers.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah exactly, you know.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Things like in those type of situations like that's great,
but I'm trying to win a football game. Yeah, this
is you know, they both play offense, so it's not
like they were out on the field at the same time.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
They weren't directly doing bad.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
But you know mom is wearing is wearing the torn
jersey right, you know down the middle, half half of
one for each boy. There's no half seas here. It's
like we're playing for keeps.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Playing for keeps.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
I want to sit down at Thanksgiving dinner and look
across and be like a.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Gotcha, Uh, John's got it on Jim Harbaugh forever.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, I beat you.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I mean it's been what twelve years now, but like
I beat you in the Super Bowl, Bro, exactly what
else happened?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Unless you come back and beat me.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
You got a national championship for you.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
You know what's funny now, is like saying, there's a
scenario where the Chargers and the Ravens play in the
AFC Championship game, right, and Jim gets his revenge, But
not really the AFC championship games, not the super Bowl.
I got you in the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I beat you in the biggest moment. You got to
go back to the NFC if you want this, because
I'm not moving because I'm King of the hill in
the house. So you're gonna have to go back somewhere else.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Cute little national championship.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
Right that Lah, that la job works for you, But
you're not playing for the Rams, Bud, you know, you're
not coaching that team. You're coaching on my side of
the ball. And guess who's a contender every year. That's right,
That's exactly right. You're trying to get where I am.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
You're trying to build West Coast Baltimore.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
You know what I mean, literally Red Rover like the
staff and personnel.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Guys and style of play that they're trying.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
To get hand players, you know, So I mean, yeah,
there's definitely a synergy there, but yeah, I mean, but
that but and that's the great bloodline stories of the NFL,
no doubt you know, when you have his family.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
I mean, that's one of the slogans of the league, right,
it should say underneath though in like small parentheses, until
it's not football is family.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Not until you see each other across.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Till it's not for sixty minutes on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Is that I don't know you Then it becomes hat
fields in the McCloy's right.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
And then when the whistle's done, all right, come on,
let's let's take.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
A picture like, yeah, well, what will memorialize this moment?
Come on, come on, who's the winner? Who's the winner?
By the way, smile bigger.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
That's right. One of you have to look miserable. One
of you has to be smiling right now for this
to really hit home.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Yeah ah man, but yeah, but I mean, but that's
the beauty of this game, man. And it's and it's
one that is that is you physically can affect the outcome. Right,
there's not one of those where you just look at
paper and make a decision absolutely, you know, And that's
why I think, you know, even with the advent of
how much technology, analytics, and you know, for better or worse,
(13:31):
the gambling aspect of it, and even not necessarily from
a monetary standpoint.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
But there's more.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
There's more information, so much data points to assess, yeah,
to consume and and make it make your own type
of correlation that you know, at the end of the day,
you could put.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
All of the stats, you can put the perfect roster together.
It doesn't matter. It's a people game.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
It's how well does that group over there mesh together
to go up against this group over there that's meshing together.
And then the unspoken type of rules of rhythm and
choreography that go on with it.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And that's what makes this game so exciting.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
It's the ultimate team sport when we have that many
people geared towards one goal and everybody's fighting to get
to the top of the mountain. But there can only
be one like the Highlander, right.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
There can only be one Highlander, that's right.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
So so, I mean, so it's fun and that's why
we love this game. And I think you know, hopefully
you know, Steelers Nation, y'all could hear that when you
listen to our broadcast, right, there's a pure passion.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And love and respect for this game.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
And you know, and you have to be able to laugh, right,
you have to be able to laugh. You have to
be able to have the good moments. You know, when
we were talking about we were on air in the
last segment, you know, Wes was pointed to me because
one person tried to buck tried to buck the trend
because you know, full insight here for if you haven't been.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Here, inside base inside baseball.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Inside baseball, you have a decision to make when you
go to the turf field field number four, that's the
one closest to the street when you come out here.
One that's not close to the grand stand. So for
us it's like eagle eye view.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yes, sea field that's kind of adjacent to the sude here.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
You got to make two decisions. We come out for
walk through. You can either go straight or you can
go left. Going straight indicates I gotta walk down the steps,
I gotta walk down, I gotta walk down the hill
and then walk across the field flat land right, but
you gotta make it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Down the concrete hill in cleats correct.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
So the walkah walk another one hundred and twenty yards
right and then down a little hump or you can
take a path of least resistance and you can just
make the left right out of the locker room and
walk down the paved road that has a nice gentle decline,
and then you can get to the steps and then
hop over the little FedEx sign you know of the partitions,
(15:55):
and then boom, you're right there. But then every once
in a while salmon tries to swim up. Someone's like,
you know what, I'm gonna go half season this. So
you there's a midpoint. And from our view, if you're
looking from the press box or the stands out to
the fields, you get right past the Saint Vincent hedges
(16:15):
and there's this little strip, little short of land, a
little short cut where you could cut through almost like
ring posts, right, you know over there with the with
the uh, with the with the rope fence. Yep, you
can and you can hit like a grassier. But I
would say it is a steep step.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It's not as.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Gradual as the other two options. Little but you shorten
your time to get to the field.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Correct, So it steps higher risk?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yes? Is it high risk high reward? Right?
Speaker 5 (16:46):
You know, but if you don't have your you know,
if you don't have your Apple watch or whatever other
product that you use as a step counter. You know
what matters. Right, A young gentleman that we all know
has been in the headlines, you know, positive guy, you know,
having fun, great relationship he's building with Aaron Rodgers, decides
to take the size it sized it to buck the
(17:07):
trend and he gets what about halfway halfway down that
hill and then it is bombs away.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
It was like a cartoon like, yeah, right on, right
on the right, on the back side.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
And mind you, it's been it's been raining all morning.
Here grass in that hill is not dry. Is where
we're going with this?
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Yes, and hence the tail of soggy bottoms.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
And so one of the Steelers wide receivers found himself
as a soggy bottom boy. Yes, headed down to practice
because he slipped. And yeah, the Steelers his teammates let
him know that immediately on what you what's gonna happen there?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Exactly?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
You asked for that one.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
It happened like what what? What's what was old boy
from the Simpsons? Yeah, exactly, the bully I forgot his
day slipped my mind right now, But that's what happens.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
I mean, those are the funny things that were like
you know, observation. We we get, we get an nice
little kind of cranes cranes roost.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Type of view to be able to take that in.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
And now is something he thought was only for his
teammates and him is now up for public assumption. So
now you get to play the wars waldo of who
became Soggy Bottom boy?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
If you so.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Desire, that's right, Yeah, we we we We will neither
confirm nor deny.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Yeah, who the culprit.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Was, we will not. But if you do ask us,
we will tell you. But you have to ask us.
That's that's just simply how it is. And you can't
and do not try and tweet me or X message.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Yeah, not on social media.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
You have to do it in person. We're not going
to out the guy on social media. But if you
do come up to me during practice you see me
walking down the hill or something and you say, hey, Max,
who's soggy bottom boy? I might answer your question. Okay,
just put that out there, little little steel.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
The number.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, yeah, we could do that as well. So yeah,
but yeah, that that is that that is our little secret.
That's that's the treasure hunt. Nugget of the day. Gotta
love it.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
That's why you tune in here to Stealers Station Radio,
because nobody overs training camp and brings you all the
details like we do on your twenty four to seven
home of the Black and the Gold. Max Starks and
I have two more segments to go here. We'll continue
to talk a little bit about walk through the final
day here of this acclamation period before the guys get
a day off tomorrow one fifty five practice. Although if
(19:17):
you look at the weather report, we'll see because there's
supposed to be some some weather in the area around two.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Again, though it's much like living in Florida. Go Gators.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
If you don't like how the weather looks here, just
wait about twenty thirty minutes because it'll change. Something will
be something will be different. So we'll keep you updated
on all of that as we roll along here in
the eleven o'clock hour on day number four of our
training camp coverage on Steelers Nation Radio on the Steelers
Audio Network.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Iheartradios. Live coverage ob Not twenty twenty five Steelers Training
Camp is presented by FATX where Now meets Next and
also brought to you by Independence Health System, by Pennsylvania
One Call System, by Live Casino, Caliente Pizza and Draft House,
by Tom's Appliances, South Hill's, Auto, Laurel, Highlands Visitors Bureau,
(20:13):
We Max Select Realty, the Pittsburgh Steelers Pro Shot, and
by us steel.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Back on campus here Saint Vincent College. As we roll
along in the locker room, West Shooler and Max starts
with you for about another half hour twenty five minutes
or so here before we turn things over to Bob
Labriola and Tom Opperman for the training camp report. Of course,
our coverage ongoing all day until five o'clock, we bring
you seven hours straight of live programming here on SNR
(20:45):
every single day that there is Steelers practice.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Tomorrow will be the first break day of Camp Max.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
And so with that, for those of you who follow
along at home and know how this process goes, that
means today is the last of the acclamation period practices, yay.
The last of the football and shorts and helmets practices yeay.
And we are all very excited for that. Saturday, the
first day is the first day.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
It's fun, it's exciting. We're back. Who cares? We're back?
This is awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
This is great Saturday.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
That first Saturday is usually really cool too, because it's
the welcome back to Football day, it's the Hall of
Honor Day, first weekend practice, which always brings a sizeable crowd.
It's Saturday, you know, you get a lot of people.
You know, there's a lot of people out here every day,
but especially on the weekends.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Networks Network Kyle Brands.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Down on the field, PAS and Mike Tomlin are taking
the microphones and talking to the crowd. But today is
kind of the first time that I think you're really like,
all right, let's get through with this. Let's get the pads,
let's get the Friday night lights, let's get to all
the fun stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
We're now thirteen days away from the first preseason game.
It's getting here closer and closer. So what's the onus today?
What's the message? What's the mentality? Last day of this
acclamation period, last day before we put the pads on
and this gets real hot and heavy.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
What's today kind of like for these guys?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
The day is fast and efficient.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Okay, that's really the key for today because you now
know what it feels like to go through individual you know,
what it is to go through these team periods. You
know how to do work and how the Steelers do work,
because that's the other thing you're also acclimating, you know,
forty three new guys to the Stealer way of doing
(22:29):
business here at training camp. Right, you got to know
where to be and what to do. Now it's like,
show me that you know those two things. So now
we can move into the how and the woe. I'm
not eve gonna say why say the how and the
woe woe because you listen. Once you get those pads
on the drills, pick up expeditiously, and now you have
(22:54):
the one on one mono E monophysical drills. Right, we
have the dB stalk drill that will happen right along
the sidelines, along along the bleachers where DB's and DB's
and y receivers as we remember Joey Porter Junior and
George Pickens.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Going at it right, so much fun, epic, epic battles.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
And then you have linebackers versus versus running backs and
tight end and that's when you get to see that's
where we learned about Jalen Warren, right, and this is
where the camp phenoms start to start to pick up.
I know, I had a couple of a couple of
our listeners, uh you know, hit me, hit me on
the x bot and say, hey, Max, when are we
going to do Camp Pinos.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
That's a fighter that's later.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
We got to get pads on because look like Tarzan,
play like Jane stages.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
It's a real thing.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
And so once you get the paths on, then we
could talk about camp phenoms and that happens on the
backs on backers drill, that happens on the wide receiver
safety dB drill, and then that happens on the O line,
D line, one on one pass rush drill.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Even just like team period and seven shots. Being able
to see real Russia temple, you know what I mean
live tackling to the ground really.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
Did stop you, you know, and you didn't quite you know.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
It was a two hand touch and I kind of I.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Kind of would that have gone for four yards or
forty yards? I can't tell because they're not tackling to.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
The ground exactly. So so that's where it picks up
another notch. And that's when you get the real evaluation period.
And then of course we get to Friday night lights
and that is its own scrimmage like situation, and it
gives you the first team like real team football approach.
And then you get to the first preseason game. So
(24:37):
we have all these little mini milestones and many mile markers.
I guess I should say I shouldn't go on milestones,
many mile markers that let you know how you're progressing,
not only as a team, but as you get through
camp and everything. And the great Bob Labriola let us
know that he has signed him for duty already.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
He's ready to rock and roll. He shows up past
the time the rest of us.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
We all show up, you know, about a minute before
we go on air.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I literally show up, usually a minute down the hill.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
The intro sounder is playing.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, in roll the headset up because.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Labs twenty five minutes early.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
We'll talk about a pro Yeah, I mean, I mean
that that's that's the guy that has seen a lot
of ball and he knows, he knows what, he knows
what the modus operandi is. That's right, and he ain't
early or late exactly. And yep, I guess I'm late
all the time.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Labs also very well versed in American sign language. Yes
as well, you know, but uh, but but it is.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
One of those things that you kind of look at
it and where this is the day where it's fast,
it needs to be a fish and he's look clean.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
So it means you.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Better not be making the same mistakes you were making
on Thursday exactly this.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Mistakes day one, you know, are no harm, no foul,
But mistakes day four, it's like, hey, son, you know
you might want to consider a new job profession if
this is what you're going to continually do.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
You start to have those big boy conversation I think
I love for a lot of guys as well. It's
like I can't really show what I can do until
I have pads on, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
You know, if you're a tackler, I was gonna say,
especially if you play like a non athletic based I mean,
if you're not on the outsides, you know what I mean,
like that defensive back or a wide receiver.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Where it's a skill finessed technique type of approach. And
there is still skill and technique obviously with the other positions.
But I can't evaluate an offensive lineman or a defensive
lineman until pads are on, because every every rep they're
gonna tell you I got a sack or and every
line was gonna say I blocked that guy and there's
no way he's getting to the quarterback or to the
running back. But when you put pads on, you find
(26:30):
out is that really true or not? So I always
reserve my judge.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
That's why when people, hey, Max, man, what do you
think about camp so far? You know you get that
question all the time. I'm like, it's good, nobody's.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
Injured, Like that's that's the only thing I can tell you,
Like the like, the injury report's pretty clean.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Ball zips off. Aaron Rodgers hands, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Like an interception, that first intercept. I'm like, dude, why
are we counting this?
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Like like, well, that's two interceptions now so far.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
My media stat tracker says, in practice, you know that
you're not. I'm like, man, no, this is the place
if you're going to make mistakes. And I love that
Aaron addressed this when they asked him about it. He's like, yeah,
I'm gonna throw interceptions. He's like, glad I got that
out the way, because unlike a lot of other people,
(27:17):
like Aaron Rodgers knows what training camp is and he's
been to twenty of them, you know, and.
Speaker 7 (27:22):
He's like a new team and language, and I have
to know what I can and can't do physically without
there being a penalty.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Guess where that is?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Training, can't practice.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
So you're gonna see some ooh's, some ohs, and some
ugh you know along the way.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
But that's what this is for. This is the place
where I get to do stupid things. And see what.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
We're talking about talking about part not the practice, not
the game, not the game where I go out there
and die for the team, not the.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Game exactly exactly, talk about practice practice. It's like I'm
supposed to miss. I'm not.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
If I come out here and do one hundred percent
at everything and I don't fail.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Guess what that means. I need to pick a different
job exactly right. When I become infallible and anything in life,
it's time to pivot, because that means I'm or some
of these guys severely wrong or right. If I can't miss.
You have to be able to do that, and in
this sport especially, and you have the greatest You have
(28:26):
an awesome like canvas to work with to paint your picture,
no doubt, So why not try and see if I
can blend this color blend together.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Can I short stroke a throw and see if it
still gets there in this tight window? Can Can I
take an aggressive, aggressive jump set against TJ.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Watt?
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Even though I know it's a no, I'm still gonna
try it because I'm not gonna get TJ. Watt seventeen
weeks in a row, right, I'm gonna get different body type.
So I need to feel comfortable with what that footwork
looks like.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And a guy like him will show me how efficient
or inefficient I am with that? Was I over my toes?
Speaker 5 (29:02):
Was I set too deep in my heels and I
couldn't pivot? Like you have to learn all of this
stuff so that you can go deploy it on game
day because these are not the same bodies I'm gonna see.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I'm gonna see similar. You're never gonna see the same
unless you get traded to another team and you play
the Steelers twice. Like this information is for me to
get better against different competition, and I'm preparing for the field,
not for the guys on the field right now.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Well, said Max Starks, I've been it is it's it's
everyone is starved.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
For football.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Everyone needs their football fix and and they're living it
out in six seconds social media clips exactly, so like,
I get it. It's part of the nature of the beast.
I was laughing at this yesterday or Friday, Like there
was this one again, six or seven second clip of
Caleb Williams in a in a in a rep for
the Chicago Bears and his receiver goes left and he
(29:56):
throws it right.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah, I mean you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
it's like miss.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
And every Chicago Bears aggregator is like, oh, man.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Can't believe he's still doing this. Oh my god, where listen.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
And I'm not saying it's gonna work out for Caleb
Williams or not, but it's not gonna be based off
that one throw on his second day of training camp
with a brand new coaching staff and offense and system
that he's trying to learn as a second.
Speaker 5 (30:19):
Year guy, exactly as the second year guy that's now
had his second system in two years.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
If Caleb Williams does wash out and never becomes what
he has the potential to be, people, it's not gonna
be like, oh, because.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
You couldn't make that throw in training camp but remember.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
That play on July twenty third, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yep, that was the end of his career. Guys, No,
it's not going to be that.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
It's gonna be we can't beat the Green Bay Packers,
you know, or the Minnesota Vice or the Detroit Lions,
and I and we and we've never won a division title.
That's what's going to get him a ceremoniously exited. It's
not gonna be him missing a throw when DJ Moore
cuts left and he goes and he throws right.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Oh the rain is now coming.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
I was just gonna say in the last about too much.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Halla has opened up.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Valhalla has opened We are in our you.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Know again, Thor alone. Don't let Thor come out.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
And of course it's like right as they're getting ready
to open up campus too, and you see all the
cars and the people starting to gather, and now a
bunch of the people are jogging on the sidewalk here
trying to get to.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
One of the cafeterias. Is going to make our lunch
run a little bit more precarious.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
I was a little worried about that.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
I was. I was really hoping it was gonna hold
out to like twelve ten.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
You know what the this is another one of those
like like when Rob King laughs at you when you're
showing technique for an offensive lineman and he's like, you know,
this is radio, Like nobody can.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
See us rights, but we could.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
I'm zipping open my backpack and I have in here
a big shout out to Arthur Nathan Motes.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Okay, this is from his.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Golf outing this summer, a little a little a little
motzy charity outing rain jacket that I got here in
my backpack so that might come in handy for lunch here.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Yeah, that'll help you, It won't help me. So thanks
for thanks, Thanks for being a team player there.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
You know what, I could just actually like probably walk
behind you or.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
Can you know, I could lift you up over my
head usually as like a tar.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
I to jack it up, and I'm like, we gotta
get to our last break. When we come back. We'll
keep you posted on everything going on here. Walk through,
still going on in the rain. Hey, as long as
it's not thunder and lightning in the area. Right Tom
likes this.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Right now, let's get some let's get some work down
the round.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
I want to see how pissed off you get exactly,
how annoyed can you get and still function?
Speaker 4 (32:24):
How uncomfortable can I make you?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Exactly? Do not seek comfort?
Speaker 3 (32:28):
It is It's like one of those It's like one
of those crossovers when we talk about the military and
football teams, like we are trying to make you uncomfortable,
we are trying to stress you out.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
And you know, I thought it was funny before we
go to break, Kyle Brandt actually took like some of
the tomlinisms and he had Mike Tomlin explain them on air,
that the top five Tomlinisms and Mike t was so
gracious to to to explain all of those.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
It was on NFL. It was. It was a great
little segment there.
Speaker 4 (32:53):
Kyle does great with that stuff.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
Yeah, he's a very good We're his second favorite team
because we know there's a Buffalo he's a Buffalo guy, right,
But he loves the Steelers. I mean he wore the
JB Super Bowl forty.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Yes, some Jerome bettis.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
Someone on yep. But yeah, so yeah, let's go to break.
Let's go to break. We'll be back.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
We will be back here. We'll bring you the final segment.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
As now, the guys are running for the locker room
as it's really starting to come down here, Uh, final
segment of in the Locker Room when we return on
the other side before we turn things over well Schuler
Max starks, it's all happening here at Saint Vincent College,
part of Training Camp twenty twenty five on Steelers Nation
Radio on a Steelers Audio.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Network Iheartradios Live coverage job not twenty twenty five Steelers
Training Camp. He's presented by Fadex where now meets Next
and also brought to you by CGR Wholesale Roofing and
Siding Supply Center, by Tom's Appliances, by Always Safe Flagging
(33:51):
and Traffic Control by Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, by
Schneider Downs, by Has's Steak and Seahouse, by your Neighborhood
four In stored by Castle Rod, by Clearview Federal Credit Unit,
and by us Steal.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Final few minutes of in the Locker Room here on
day number four of training camp. As we've mentioned a
few times, the last acclamation period practice for the Steelers
before the pads go on on Tuesday and things really
get ramped up next week and look at that, I
mean we go to commercial break and it is raining
cats and dogs.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Now it's just a light drizzle.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, it's just it's just cat.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
It's just cat.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yeah, we don't even we don't get to the t
it's just c.
Speaker 5 (34:34):
So now it's just a nice, consistent drizzle that's happening.
But like you, like you said it, Hey, if you
don't like the weather, wait twenty to thirty minutest or
just wait one commercial break and.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
You'll be to walk to lunch.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So you and I we were joking a little bit
about our buddy Matt Williamson during break there and all
the statistical breakdown stuff that he does for us. He
just sent me an eighteen page preview packet on with
twenty twenty five Steelers. He's a maniac, and I mean
that in the best way possible. But here's one of
the things that I found interesting that I want to
pick your brain for four or five minutes.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Before we get out of here.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Pittsburgh's offensive line last year allowed pressure in two and
a half seconds or less on twenty five percent of
quarterback dropbacks. That's twenty seventh in the league, bottom bottom five.
Not great, But Matt's point is one I think Aaron
Rodgers will help with that with his game brain pre
snap yes, and his help to diagnose and confuse a defense.
(35:28):
And two, the Steelers had the third highest the third
best average of time to pressure.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
So what Matt's point in saying that is.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
A lot of the reason why was because Wilson and
Field's holding the ball for too long, something that Aaron
Rodgers isn't gonna do either.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
No, he's not gonna do and decisiveness is gonna change drastically.
And you know, the other thing is is, you know,
you talk about arm talent and armed strength.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Obviously Justin Feel's.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Had plenty of arm strength, but the arm talent was lacking.
And Russell had plenty of arm talent but didn't have
the arm string. Right, So that's what leads on holding
the football. Well, Aaron has both, and you know, and
we've seen and we have case study after case study
that we can throw out there right of him doing
(36:16):
clutch things and clutch moments and knowing what the temperature
is throughout the course of a game and how to
buy time and when he needs it. But also he
knows how to alleviate that pressure and and and help
your buddy out so to speak. And I think that, yeah,
you're right. I mean there's a great stat you talk about.
Time to pressure is always a key thing because how
(36:36):
much time does a quarterback have to.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Process before that first decision has to be made or
not made? And you know, and then of course, you
know you talk about you know, the whole total pressure
rate of under three seconds.
Speaker 5 (36:50):
Three seconds is an eternity, eternity for an offensive lineman.
And I think people are like, but it was only
three sod. I'm like, listen, when you have a human being.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Burrow was getting that ball out in one point nine seconds,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (37:03):
Forget three Well, and I remember a stat when they
were talking about like Ben and Aaron were both like
oh their tours at the bottom of the league and
and and holding on to the remember that it was
I want to say it was like oh nine to
like twelve, like oh, it's the third longest release and
blah blah blah blah blah. But I'm like, but they're
doing things with that. It's not there standing static like
(37:25):
like like the statue of Liberty back there. Granted we
did have a San Francisco game. I won't talk about
that one where Ben was injured and I'm playing and
we're like, like, not not against San Francisco, Please don't please,
Oh god, he's back there.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
You know he can't. They got all this Smith and
Justice running in the T game and holding the living
daylights out of us on a twist. Oh my god.
It was it was horrible.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Was that? Like was that like Patrick Willis Navarro Bowman
Era two or not?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yes? No, there, They're the everybody on there. It was
like it was like, holy crap. Is it. It's almost
like you're the dog catcher and you run into a
group of feral dogs, like a pack of them, and
you only have like two of those little post noose things,
and but you've got twelve dogs like barreling down a
(38:14):
you you just say, oh god, can I kick one?
Can I slap over a bowl before I put it on?
You know? I mean, it was like it was like,
good God.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
I was like, I remember I had and I had
to make this interception tackle on Carlos Rogers.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
And I was sitting there. I was like like, I'm like,
oh god, and I thank god I made a form
tackle on him.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
But I was like, if not, he was going to
the house. But it was like outside of those moments,
you know, quarterbacks are trying to manipulate the defense with
their feet, and none better than Ben. I mean, Ben
would shrug off three sacks, do a spin.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Move on like Terrell Suggs too, not on some like
defensive back.
Speaker 5 (38:50):
B Yeah from Yah Dwight Freeny. Right, you're escaping the
clutches of like Hall of Famers.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Guys who were top ten, top twenty all time in
league sack totals.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
So, I mean, so you know, there's like context within
a stat, but I think the general stat is showing.
What Matt was trying to show is that Yeah, I
was like, not all of these are to cut the same,
and your quarterback can do things to help that stat,
and that'll be the advantage of Aaron Rodgers versus previous
iteration quarterback position guys over the last three years. That
(39:20):
will make that look a lot different and also help
a young forming offensive line.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
And I know as an offensive lineman, I don't need
to tell you this, but that's why we talk about
There's there's sacks where offensive lineman just get beat, but
there's also coverage sacks.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
There's also quarterbacks at.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
Hustle plays by the defense, yep, And I think that's
where you have to kind of delineate. You can't say, oh,
pre snap, that was Max's guy, and Max's guy made
the play.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
First of all, did he twist?
Speaker 4 (39:47):
And a half seconds later?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Did he twist?
Speaker 5 (39:50):
Three and a half second I ran the hoop like
I'm supposed to, meaning running, I got ten yards deep,
creating an opportunity for the quarterback to either step up
or step out, because you create that gap and then
does a quarterback stay you know one of the things,
and you know he's not here, But I still talked
about it on the airwaves. When you turn over your
(40:10):
throwing shoulder and spin out, you lose the defense. Now
he has to reorient himself totally. And that's one of
the things that I just hated. I hated about Russ
I'd say hate that strong word. I disliked about his
game was that when pressure fell, he would spin off
of his right shoulder, right leg, and you lose the
defense as opposed to pivoting back with your left foot,
(40:32):
keeping your body open, your eyes down field.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
And escaping that way.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
So the spin pivot would lose it and then he
couldn't ide where the guys were because he's a shorter
quarterback and you got to reorientate.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Was when he was twenty second exactly. So that's a
that's another about three quarters to a second and a
half that you have to account for and getting the
ball out.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
So, like I said, not all stats are the same,
not all sacks are the same, but that stat there
lets you know that when you have the higher IQ
guy who still has the skill set to go with it,
it makes for a better day for your offensive production.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
This weather clear and up, we'll hopefully make for a
better day here in Lake tro But that'll do it
for Max and I this morning on this edition of
In the Locker Room. But still five straight hours of
coverage to come here on Steelers Nation Radio with Tom
Opperman and Bob Labriola and the Training camp report up next.
Take care, everybody, we'll talk to you soon. You have
been in the Locker Room on your twenty four to
(41:29):
seven home of the Black and Gold at Steelers Nation
Radio on the Steelers Audio Network.
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