Point After: A Rough Day

Rob, Matt, and Wolf breakdown the disappointing afternoon against the Arizona Cardinals.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is the Point After presented by Parks Casino. Is
today your Lucky Day bet Parks by Brian Patton Associates.
It's all about the benefits and by the steel there's
pro shop get it direct from the team at shop
dot Steelers dot com. Alongside Craig Wolfley and Matt Williamson,
I'm rob king. This look back segment is brought to
you by Brian Patton and Associates. It's all about the benefits,

(00:33):
and yes, we do have to look back yesterday's twenty
four to ten loss to Arizona before we mine deeply
into an unfortunately rich area of mistakes. Wolf anything off
the top of your mind.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, I'm now behind to my brother Ronn in the
fully battle. You know, my brother ron of course is
color commentator for the Cardinals, and you know, I was
hoping for a little more, you know from the boys
here at home, so that I could reclaim my dominance
as the elder Wolfley, you know, and then therefore the

(01:13):
mere pittance that my brother younger brother is and I
could laugh at him, but of course that didn't work out,
so we moved from that vantage point.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, Matt, anything initial.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Lots, I mean none of it's particularly great, to be
honest with you. I mean, I think it's a great
example of things we've talked about all year from this
team that when you play so close to the vest,
and I'm not even talking about play calling, I mean,
just so little room for air one score games, have
to win in the margins, turnover differential, which for the

(01:43):
most part they've done extremely well. Sometimes it goes the
other way on you, and it goes downhill quick.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
So this was the list, and I shared this list
with with Wolf and Max Starks this morning. So you know,
you're going through and usually it's you know, usually you win, it's,
you know, ninety percent good. A couple of things, like
last week we talked about one, sixteen to ten special
teams penalties. You know, mostly it's good stuff. Right, you
ran the ball, the offense looked better. You had four

(02:11):
hundred yards, So excuse me. Here's what I had. Lack
of offensive continuity, injuries, poor third down defense, poor third
down offense, special team penalties, no answers for Trey McBride.
Mason Cole had a tough day snapping. The red zone
defense was not good. The red zone offense was not good.

(02:31):
The coaching was not good. You had twelve months in
the field with a call late in the game out
of a timeout. You had an alignment issue with Chukes failing.
You take to feel therearly in the third, two times
you had alignment issues with offensive lineman uncovered and James
Connor and the Cardinals took it to you late in
the game. So other than that, that was That was
my list, good list anything.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
I think it was fairly expansive.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, there's I'm sure I missed some, but Matt.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Then I came up with off the top of my head. Okay,
Porter played really, really well, but defensive pass interference in
the end zone it's not great. I think it was
opening kickoff, you bobble the kickah in your own end
zone and nil out.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Neil, Yeah, Neil, you took it out in the twenty
three or but like, that's still.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
A mental air.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
I'm sitting there thinking, you know what, maybe things are
going good for us, because if you're gonna blow that
and then you're gonna come out smelling good, you know
what I mean, maybe the other things are going to
go good. Yeah, it didn't quite go that way.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
So let's start, uh, Matt where you started, and I agree. So,
you know, so when I said, and I'm going to
tie one of these things into what you were talking about,
so to me, the lack of offensive continuity early in
this game. So by that, I mean, you know, in Cincinnati,
we saw you get over four hundred yards and an
impressive rushing total and an impressive throwing total and taking

(03:50):
care of all these things that you want to do
as an offense. And then you look up at the
scoreboard and it's sixteen points, right, you don't you don't
get the points. So in this opening drive after the fumble,
you take it out of the end zone, you're running
the ball, you're passing the ball, and you only lind
up with three points. And then that allows Arizona to

(04:12):
stick around and stick around and stick around. And then
the clear, clear turning point of this game is you
don't punch it in from the one on fourth and
goal with a quarterback coming in off the bench, and
they go ninety nine yards on you. So instead of
even with things not being great, instead of being up
ten to three going into the half, you're down ten

(04:33):
to three going into the half and a half. You've
pretty much had your way with them. That's why I
talk about the continuity just wasn't it didn't fit together
the puzzle pieces. You're looking at two different puzzles. Here's
the puzzle pieces that are the yards. Here are the
puzzle pieces that are the points. And you can't fit
him into the same puzzle.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
And then you go into the half without your starting quarterback,
your green dot guy on defense, and the skies open up,
you know, and then you know, I mean, right, the
timing wasn't great on all those things. But a lot
to unpack there. So how many games in a row
do we have to see the stat of the Steelers
of the best record in the history of the world
when they have never out out yardaged their opponents. Well,

(05:13):
that was I think whatever was but we saw it
forever and say it was ten, Canada was gone, you
know whatever. So and then this game, well they had
more yardage their opponent. But that doesn't translate to wins necessarily.
It's the other things. It's your list that you started
to call goints, yeah, points and lack of mistakes and
things like that. Now, a lot to unpack there too.

(05:34):
I mean, when they went for it on fourth and one,
I'm sitting there typing, I'd go for it. I always
like to, you know, take notes in the minute, you know,
in the in real time. What would I have done
not Monday, Oh it didn't work, you know, that type
of thing. And then because at that point, I think
the number was twenty six yards that the cards had
got on you to that point, right, you know, I

(05:54):
mean you were winning on that side of total. I mean,
it's a right call. You didn't get in the end zone,
so be it. I don't have the answer to their
red zone woes, but they're great. I mean, the red
zone woes are a huge problem. I don't know why.
I used to just kind of blame a young quarterback
because young quarterbacks struggle with condensed spaces. But I don't
think that's it anymore. That needs to be addressed.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
And yes, and I agree with you. I would have
gone for it. I would have trusted my defense to
stop them and get me the ball back and maybe
get three or maybe get seven before the end of
the half. And instead they go ninety nine yards. Well,
if that was the clear to me momentum.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
SWA ten times out of ten times, I go for it.
You're at home all right, you got the crowd on
your side, you got some you got some good jams
going on. Guys are moving bodies and everything else, so
you're excited about it. So you want the opportunity to
go And as Chuck Nolo always used to say, you
earn the right as an offensive line. You earned the
right to go forward on fourth down and offensively, I

(06:51):
thought these guys were moving some bodies. What I would
have done is going under center, because you eliminate the
threat of the quarterback sneak right away. Right away, they're
sitting there going well, there's no quarterback sneak here. Second
thing is you're gonna see all the second level guys
are gonna be able to see who gets the ball
because you're in shotgun. And obviously probably with you know,
not that it holds one hundred percent accurate, but with

(07:13):
Trubisky coming in, I'm sorry, that was that was picket
with With Picket in there, the fact of the matter is,
you know you you you don't think he's gonna run
it from there? You know what I mean? It just
doesn't make sense. Okay, wait a minute, yes, I got
because I got screwed up. I was thinking about when
he got hurt. Okay, so I was right, No, he's
not gonna no, but he's not gonna throw it either.

(07:35):
You know, probably there's most most likely he's gonna hand
it off. And if you're gonna hand it off, everybody's
gonna see who it is. And it was Nagi and
Nagie had a great run at the line. But you know,
the guy that he missed actually was Nate Herbie who
walked his guy off the line of scrimmage. And by
the way, I did get that was one of those
crushed synapses that kicked in there as we were talking
about whether it's trubisky or whether it's picket. But here's

(07:57):
here's the deal. You've got some guys that can move bodies.
Nate Herbig moved his man. What happened was on the
back side when Naji slammed in there and gave up. Well,
basically it was a ballistic enema the James Daniels, you
know it. The whole line was moving east west as
it's trying to get to that that cushing point where
you're pushing into the end zone.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Make backside moved backwards. Roderick Jones exactly on the back side.
They were cutting off, so you know you're moving a
little bit sideways. There is a Cardinals lines is pinching
down there, and that's what created the problem where you
couldn't get into the end zone. Yeah. In the postgame comments,
Mike Tomlin said it didn't matter under center a shotgun,
but I would have gone under center there.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
I mean, then you still have the tush push thing
going to the right.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
At least you have that option, brotherly show, but it
does it does sound better. So we were we were
talking in the uh or we're doing the postgame show,
and they had that game up there, the forty nine Eagles,
and the Eagles had the ball first and goal at
the four, and they did two quarterbacks first to goal
at the four. I mean that's like, uh, you know,

(09:04):
get the newsreels going nineteen thirty three football, I mean,
you know, what do you do? That worked? Two quarterbacks
sneaked from the four and they got in.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
You got it?

Speaker 1 (09:12):
I mean, uh so, yeah, I would have liked to
have seen that. And then you know, there were ample
opportunities to come up with stops on that ninety nine
yard drive. Four third down conversions I believe on the
drive you know, uh penalty penalty eighted deal with big play, Yeah,
McBride was big. There's an opportunity to make a tackle

(09:34):
in the backfield on a third and six for the
two minute warning. It was almost as if Arizona was saying, Okay,
we did what we wanted to do. We got it
out of here. Now we're going to kick it away
and be happy to go in three three. I don't
know whether that was their mindset, but they ran the
ball on third and six and Walker hit the man
in the backfield, but he got out of the tackle
and wound up running to the right and picking up

(09:54):
a first down. And now all of a sudden, you're
under the two minute warning, you got all three of
your timeouts, and and you've got your thinking score now right.
And I'm just saying that.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Was a total perplection changer.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yes, that was one play where I think they were
even I think they were just saying, look, we get it,
we get it. If we don't get it, kick it away.
We did what you know, We're immediately dodged a bullet,
and now all of a sudden they not only get it,
but then they get other ones. McBride was uncoverable by
the Steelers in this game. He was just a mismatched nightmare.
He's a really good, interesting young player. And then you

(10:28):
know when they marched down and score before the half. Wow,
you talk about a momentum changer. That was a huge
momentum swing.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, think about this. They go fifteen plays ninety nine
yards right, they were what zero for five I think
it was on their first third down conversions or oh
for four, and then they converted five in a row
in that fresteing play drive. I mean, like you going,
where'd that come from? Right? Right?

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Which is why I agree with Matt's premise. I would
have gone for it too. They'd done nothing, Arizona had
done nothing offensively, and you've got a good defense, and
you're thinking, Okay, we don't score here, we're gonna get
the ball back midfield. We're gonna yeah, we're gonna get
the ball back around midfield. We're gonna have plenty of time.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
We're gonna go probably get three out of it. And
that's in the game like this. That's yeah. So I
have no problem with that. I do have a problem
with the I'm with you, guys. I would have went
under center I think it takes a lot of the
mystery or add adds more of the mystery. But the
crime was committed on defense, you know, I mean allowing
a ninety nine yard drive, and if you notice there
almost was their offense was almost two phases to me,

(11:28):
was the McBride phase, especially after Roberts was hurt all
the ten yard fifteen yard areas and he was uncoverable.
But they didn't have an answer. And I haven't watched
you all twenty two yet, but it looked like a
lot more minca on McBride late in the game, which
is something we kind of talked about going in. But
that's when they start handed to Connor and you couldn't
stop him in the second half, right, you know, it
was like exactly riding the first half Connor and the

(11:50):
second and they spammed it to death.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Except now you've got a plague in the middle linebackers,
I mean inside linebackers, so you got all kinds of
issues going on there.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Okay, I was going to say that for next second,
Well let's tackle now, because Roberts got home. Roberts got
hurt early on that ninety nine yard drive. He had
been dinged up before reinjured the groin, left the game
and then of course didn't return. That was early on.
I think they had the ball right right around the
ten yard line. They're on ten yard line in Arizona
when he came out and they they could not. You

(12:22):
have to give Arizona. I'll give Arizona this credit. And
you know, look, we're gonna look at this and say
the Steelers should have won this game. I'll say it.
I said it Saturday, I will saying it at Sunday.
I'll say it today. They should have won this game.
But a really nice job by Arizona of understanding that
McBride was a guy that could do damage and on
that drive with the Landon Roberts out, now you're out

(12:44):
your top three linebackers, and the Landon Roberts going into
all this was your third best cover guy at linebacker.
But going into this game, he's your best cover guy
at linebacker. So you know, you have Cole Holc comes out,
you have Kwan Alexander's out, the Landon Roberts doing a
terrific job, flourishing with the opportunity. I thought, now he
comes out of the game and all of a sudden,

(13:05):
it's just the Trey McBride show. I thought they managed
the clock extremely well Arizona. You know, they left fifteen
seconds left in the clock after the touchdown. You know,
I do think that they deserve some credit for that.
I mean, the other teams are doing something good. They
did something good. They saw they saw the weakness, they

(13:26):
exploited it. They managed the clock well, and they marched
down in Scort.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
There's no question about it. And part of the problem
when you lose in Land and Roberts, you lose a
guy who has communicating, communicative abilities that really set him
as a as a chief Green Dot guy, you know
what I mean. The guy has knowledge, he's got experience,
He's able to direct traffic from that area, make sure
that he's connecting with the front end and the back
end and everybody's on the same page. And when you

(13:52):
lose a guy like that who has such a bounce
back bang in his repertoire, I mean, this guy, I
can't I can't get over some of the hits I
watch him drop on people. I haven't seen hits like
that in a long time around here. I mean, Kendrell
Bell is a guy that comes to mind when you
talk about bouncing people back like that, of course, Debo

(14:12):
and so forth. But you know, I mean he really
has a gift for it, and then to lose him
was losing more just not as you know, the communication aspect,
but the ability to drop people right in their tracks.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Okay, so good, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, one thing about the communication aspect is a lot
of fans don't understand this, and Wolford understand it better.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
That's exactly what I was going to ask you to do.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
So you lose your guy, your communication guy. Now that
doesn't mean you can't get a play called to everyone's ears,
but you probably can't adjust pre snap and all those things.
So maybe they say, guys, we're just playing cover two
to get out of the half, you know, and Kyler
knows it, and the offense coordinator knows it, and McBride
knows it. You know, a lot of times the defense

(14:57):
is just go to a default mechanism. That's why people
script plays. If we overload this side with tight ends.
They didn't practice it all week, so boom, they're going
to cover two or whatever it is. You know, so
possibly in that drive, and again I haven't studied every snap,
they just simplify it to no end, saying the chances
of us going them going ninety nine and killing us
are slimming done. But because we don't have the communication,

(15:18):
we're gonna stay very very basic, not change a lot
at the line of scrimmage or pre snap depending on
what they do. And that's that's the communication stuff.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
It gets hard and we're gonna dig a little bit
deeper into the green dot. We're gonna talk about some
of the other issues. The Steelers had a quick week,
The injury is gonna gonna be a key factors they
get ready for Thursday night's game against New England. All
that and more still the coming The Point After on
Stealer's Nation Radio on one oh two point five DVE,

(15:54):
Welcome back to the Point After, presented by Parks Casino.
Is today your Lucky Day bet Parks by Brian in Associates.
It's all about the benefits and by the Steelers Pro
Shop get it direct from the team at shop dot
Steelers dot com. And speaking of dot, we're gonna go
green dot here, So let's get a little football one

(16:14):
oh one. Well, talk about how the importance of the
green dot and what happens in the communication. On the
defensive end. I think a lot of people think about
the communication on the offensive end. The play comes in,
the quarterback gets to the line of scrimmage. Maybe you know,
he does a check with me where he takes. You know,

(16:35):
a play that's supposed to be going to the right
thirty four slam and now you just say, hey, we're
going to run it to the left thirty five slam. Right,
that's a check with me, or you check out of
the play altogether. We don't like this look. So I
think people have a pretty good understanding of what happens
on the offensive side from the moment the play gets
called to the moment the ball is snap. Talk about
the green dot and the importance of the communication on

(16:56):
the defensive side of the ball.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Well, the big thing is to know when you've got
switches on the perimeters, when you're on the inside, whether
you kick down, where your strength is its call strengths.
First of all, strength to the right, to the left.
What have you all right? Or you got to you
call the play in the huddle, it's the basic play.
Then you start calling out the strengths and you adjust
accordingly to how the offense presents itself. This is all

(17:19):
based on down distance and the personnel groupings that come out.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
So the person that's wearing the green dot, yeah, he's
communicating with the defensive coordinator's right, communicating with Tarrell right,
and then is Tarrell So he calls the play in
the huddle, just like the quarterback would call it. Play huddle.
Everybody goes out to their cover two whatever the formation is.
Right now things need to change. Is Tarrell Austin communicating
with the green dot, is communicating with the guys or

(17:44):
is the green dot now in charge of Hey, I
see this, I see that. I got to move guys
around here.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
He's going to move guys around, Okay, you know, I
mean he sees it. He's a quarterback on And what
you've got to do is you've got to make sure
that in the final frame, which is the final lineup
of the offense before the snap of the ball, you
are set, all right, I mean you have to adjust.
So you see him, You see a guy go in
motion right, and you see somebody either run with them
or checks. Guys are waving, gesturing with their hands. They're

(18:10):
communicating to each other. As this play is developing, as
the formations the motions, what have you are occurring. They
are making sure that everybody's on the same page when
you're down near the goal line. I remember distinctly it
up up at the seven shots up at the training
camp and make a Fitzpatrick and Levi Wallace were over
by the sidelines where I was close enough I could

(18:32):
hear the two of them yelling, Okay, I got this,
you got that out, or they're going back and forth.
They're communicating. They came from you know, inside to the outside,
and everybody's making sure in their specific area if that
they're communicating because the front end of the back end,
back end, they got to know what each other is doing, right,
so that whole thing is playing out and it's.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Usually best to have somebody, I would think in the
middle of the field. A middle linebacker is usually the
guy could be.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Seen, somebody who recognizes and is able to call it
out and adjust and has got a big mouth, right
you know, because you've got and let me tell you something.
One of the first things I had to learn when
I came up here was to learn and know your
quarterback's voice because you get down in there, there's a
lot of chatter and then you got somebody yelling on
the other side, and ray Lewis was unbelievable at this

(19:16):
and I was glad I wasn't even on a field,
but ray Lewis could go up to the lion of scrimmage
and be yelling things that you know, he's just trying
to interfere with the call, but he was making it
sound very business like to get away. So the referee didn't,
you know, flag him on something. But that goes on
out there, believe you me.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
So another aspect people don't think about. Like you're sitting
there at home at your lazy boy and they run
the ball for five yards, the whistle blows, You take
a sip of your beer, you grab a handful of chips.
But meanwhile, coach Austin the second that that whistle blows,
he's thinking, what are their tendencies on second and five?

Speaker 2 (19:50):
What is my call here? Boy?

Speaker 3 (19:51):
This area of the field they love to take shots,
you know, yeah, and you you do it describing it great.
Just throw in the personnel groupings because the they just
went from eleven to heavy. Okay, now what do they
like to do in the middlefield? Okay, now I'm gonna
pick this play boom that maybe takes I don't know,
five seconds, ten seconds. By the time it ends up
in said linebacker's ear, they may be already close to

(20:14):
the line of script. What if it's hurry up? What
if it's you know, like the pacing of it all
is what people don't think about at home, like, yeah,
I have chips, I'll sit here and drink beer. Why
weren't they ready for the play? You know? Why wasn't
chokes out there in time or whatever it is. I mean,
like the procedure of it all is quick, and then
you'll see little things like the linebacker comes up and
taps one of the defensive tackles on the butt. Move

(20:35):
over six inches, move over a foot. That means everything
to the defense alignment like I'm gonna throwing bush under
the under the bus. But a lot of people in
that building told me he often aligned wrong, and by
that they mean a foot to the left, a foot
to the right. And Wolf will tell you if I'm
a guard, I'm gonna block that linebacker and he's given
me an extra foot to get to him, I'm gonna smother.

(20:56):
I'm gonna smother. And that's Robert saying, hey, shift you're
you're leaning too far, You're you know, you're making it
too easy.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
On and and again I think you also Matt made
another great point Wolf about now you have your communicators gone,
do you just simply sit in a sort of base defense,
much like especially.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
In that situation and a half, let's just get out
of the half ago halftime, figured it out right.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
And the drive it won't end right, the drive that
keeps going and going and going. And you know, on offense,
people can maybe think about the rookie quarterback. There's all
the questions about this Kenny, is Kenny picking calling the plays?
Is you have to call what's played well, you know,
or play does he have to you know, run what's called.
I think for a lot of young quarterbacks that's probably
more the case. Less freedom. You're just going to do

(21:40):
what the coach tells you to do. And that's a
tactical disadvantage.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
For a team.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
One of the reasons why more experienced quarterbacks are nice
to have because they can see things happening and I
suppose the same thing is happening defensively right that those
same things and so you want to be able to,
you know, have somebody out there that can that can
help you do some things.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
There's no question. I mean, in Dallas one you remember,
and was it Monday night football or whatever Thursday night came, Yeah,
Monday and football were in Dallas and Terry Bridshaw calls
the play one way and Mike Webster's over the ball.
We're at the line scrimmage. He turns his head, he goes,
can't run it, Terry. Then he audibles the other way.
He looks over and goes back, can't run that one either, Terry.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
You know.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
I mean that's the kind of communication it was back
in the day, you know. And it's evolved in the language.
The terminology has changed and gotten more concise and to
the point and helpful in that aspect. But it's a
difficult thing when there's all those voices going on out
there and you're trying to communicate, and so many of
the code words and the gestures. You'll see quarterbacks tug

(22:43):
a face mask and see him put a hand on
their hip or something like that to indicate where they're
going with that. I mean, it's really kind of crazy
out there.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah, so let's get on to thank you guys both
through the explanation, hopefully some people got some clarity on
the importance of the green dot and maybe even educated
on what it is exactly means. You know, there's a
few things I want to pick on here, the special
teams penalties. And I don't want to pick on Miles
Killerber because this isn't like him now. He had three
penalties running into the kicker, which was declined in two

(23:13):
other penalties. Regardless it happening last week in Cincinnati where
they had some special teams penalties, this team is still
constructed in such a way that any little thing they
do that allows the opponent to hang around. Like you
talked about at the head of this show, Matt, whether
that is getting three when you should have gotten seven,

(23:35):
whether that is turning the ball over, or whether that
is committing penalties, it gives the other team ten or
fifteen yards, big yards in the penalty game. The stealers
can't have this. This is two weeks in a row now.
They can't have these kind of mistakes on special teams.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
One hundred percent. And I'm not sure exactly you know
how I love my stats and I'm not sure how
to find this, but I do want to find where
they're at in terms of special teams penalty for the year,
it seems high to me. But that's also a big
reason across the league. People just booming in the end
zone because there's so many special teams penalties across the league.
It's a it's a league wide epidemic. But I will
say too along those lines, Harvin had a punt that

(24:14):
was a line drive that didn't allow his guys to
get under enough. You know, he's been too inconsistent, and frankly,
I think their two best special teams players are killer
Brew and Boswell. Boswell uncharacteristically makes missus a kick. You know,
Killer Brew has penalties. They're the ones you trust the most.
I mean, in some ways it's just not your day.
But that's no excuse.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
I'm blaming that. Boswell miss on like the biblical like rain.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
And lightning, and you know it was when's the last
time he was it me?

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Or was it going right down the middle and just
like seem to miss somehow looked like he had a
perfect Yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Don't.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
I don't understand that.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
And you can't do anything after it leaves your foot. Yeah,
you know, you're just looking at it.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
If we're looking to ascribe, and what we're looking for
is not to describe blame, but reasons that you lost
the game. He's always going to be at the very
bottom of my list because he's been a reason they
one game.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Same thing with exactly to make it. You know, you
don't get to be a special teams captain by making
silly mistakes. You know, this guy is a solid guy,
solid performer, the one that I can understand the facement,
the thing that I know there's something really wrong. You
know when when you go up and you whack a

(25:29):
guy who signaled fair catch. Yeah, he knew it immediately.
He You know, it was just like I remember one
time out in Seattle. I came out on a slider
Molly protection. You slide, you check inside linebackers outside. I
know it. It's half back option. I know the play.
I know that I'm checking inside back or to outside.
I see out of the corner of my eye Walt
Abercrombie heading out, and for some reason I see the

(25:51):
outside linebacker Russian. I go back inside, thinking, oh, Walt's
going to pick him up. I'll go back help the
boys inside. Wait a minute, no, that's my guy. He's
out on a pass run past option route, right, Holy Cole,
you want to talk about unleashing a mess of a
pile up man? That was you know, but it's just uncharacteristic.
It just happened. It's a glitch in the in the

(26:11):
old nugget, you know. It's these things happen every now
and then.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
You know when those happen, you're like, really, you know,
I mean, there were so many different things, whether it's
that guy slight you know, the running back, sliding out
of the walker tackle, or that ball that Connor Hayward
just you know, could he have caught that off the
fingertips that could it have been a little bit more
toward him? I mean, just you know, they they have
back to back plays in which they fumble and they recover,

(26:36):
you know, I mean, just you just it's not no,
it didn't bounce their way, but they didn't help themselves.
And here was one of the things that I think
aggrieved many fans left them aggrieved. Aggravated. Twelve men in
the field. Call. You come out of a timeout and
you have twelve men in the field. You have your

(26:58):
pinned down deep in your own territory, and you're looking
to change personnel and you want chokes a corri four
in as the extra tackle and he's not out in
the huddle, and you got to use the timeout.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
And he's got to run fifty yards to get there.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Not just right right.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Twice you have twice an offensive tackle uncovered to an
illegal formation. Once a year is a lot. Twice a game.
I don't know if I've ever seen that. I mean,
when you see things like that, it's befuddling. And you know,

(27:36):
Mike Tomlin came out and said, look, JV effort and
he said it starts with him, and those are the
kind of things that it's hard not to look at
and say, you know, shouldn't some coaches have been involved
in this and getting our guys lined upright and making
sure we have the proper personnel on the field or
not on the field.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
There's no doubt there is. But Mike's not going to
throw him under the bus, right all right. He's all
that will be handled behind those doors, you know, and
this will be rectified, There's no doubt about it. But yeah,
some people missed.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
Out and you have to wonder. I mean, everyone's to
kill Mat Canada for his tenure here, But when you
have a change, and maybe you have a bunch of
cooks and you know, making the stew instead of one.
The communication stuff we got wonky. I don't know, can't happen.
I'm just some about on offense. I mean, it can't happen.
There's no question about that. And boy, it happened a
lot yesterday.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, and then again. Unfortunately, some names have to be
named after games. I guess Mason Cole took immediate responsibility
for his issues snapping the ball.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
I still wondered, what did something happen to his hand?
He went to the tent. I was wondering if there
was between slippery you know, weather, you got the rain,
you got the hall stuff like that. There's no excuses,
he said, Look, there's no excuse for it. But if
you bang your hand, then I would hope that you'd say, hey, listen,
i'm having trouble gripping, having gription on this ball, get

(28:55):
under center or do something to alleviate that problem. You
take one thing away from It's hard enough. I mean,
when you've got somebody a three hundred and fifty pound
cheese whopper sitting on your nose, you've got to snap
that ball back accurately in a shotgun and then use
that same hand. That's got to be skillful to punch
a guy that's three hundred and fifty pounds in the

(29:15):
chest with a heavy pad on there. It can take
a you know, you get a little hand damage in there.
I understand that. Again, it's something you got to work out.
If something goes wrong, you got to be able to
rectify it.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
And I hadn't thought of it, but you know, his
backup is sitting there next to them at left guard.
He's not able to come off the bench if there
is on hand. You're playing with it, yeah right right.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, because her big had to go in formala. But
the other thing too, you know. And Ben Roethlisberger was
on DV this morning talking about how you know, as
a quarterback, you want that snap up high obviously because
you really don't want to take your eyes off of
what's happening down the field. I mean, that's that was
always a that was one of the big argument Troily
on with the shot. Oh well, you got to look

(29:54):
at the ball. You can't see the field like you
can if you're dropping back. Well, you know, Ben was saying,
you're you're kind of looking almost peripherally at the ball,
like you're seeing it come to you, but you're so
used to catching it you're able to catch it, but
also keep your eyes downfield. And you talk about like
some things like the fumbles, the ball just not bouncing
your way, of all the calls to have a low snap,
of all the calls. It was a screen so those

(30:17):
linemen are already coming in. So if you're Mitch Trubisky,
you're already probably feeling a little rushed to get that
ball and go into your you know, Laurence Olivier backpedal
so you can suck them in and throw. I mean,
if it's another play. I mean, it wasn't the worst
snap you had of the day. Actually, I mean it
was low, and it was it's not where you wanted

(30:38):
it to be. But I mean just just crazy that
it happened to happen on a screen call.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Oh yeah, this is crazy. How many things just happened
to happen on a certain things? Yeah, happen. I still
go back to poor Miles, you know, missing the guy waving.
Miles never misses that, right, you know, I mean three,
not just once, but three low snap. I mean it
says to me, there's something wrong with the hand, you know,
and then you start to have other situations occur that

(31:06):
you don't they're problematic, and you're.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
Right, a lot of the bad stuff happened at the
wrong time that question. You'd be better for second and
one and then I we'll just scrap it, go to
third and one and get pick it up.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
Right.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
But the Cardinals Rondo Moore also dropped a touchdown and
I mean like that. Yeah, they did play a perfect
game either right right.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Right, for sure. More to get to some grim some
not so grim. Yeah, that's when the Point After continues
on Steelers Nation Radio on one O two point five DV.

(31:50):
This is the Point After presented by Parks Casino. Is
today your Lucky Day bet Parks by Brian Patton Associates.
It's all about the benefits and by the Student's pro shop.
Get it direct from the team at shop dot Steelers
dot com. Okay'm running down my list of things we
did with the red zone offense and defense we didn't like.
That was a big factor in the game against Arizona.
I think that's pretty self explanatory. Late in this game,

(32:13):
I was surprised, you know, earlier in the season, you know, Matt,
and I'll start with you on this. We saw the
Steelers defense get worn down three and out, drive three
and out, the offense not helping them well. And this
game is too has actually won the time of possession.
But late in the game, I was very surprised to

(32:35):
see the Arizona Cardinals be able to line up and
run it on them. You desperately needed some stops and
the Steelers defense couldn't stop late in the game.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
Yeah, I wish I had something great and insightful to
add to that. I mean, it's just a fact. I mean, frankly,
I thought Connor played really well too. I mean it
was to be a special game for him, of course.
And I remember looking at the halftime stats going Connor
only a seventeen yards. Boy, he looks better than that.
He looks spry as I can remember, and vigorated. So
you always have to give the opponents some credit as well.

(33:07):
Late in the game, though, I saw a lot of
thirteen personnel, which we talked about from a Steeler perspective.
But Arizona is at the top of the league and
doing so, and in that situation, I think you'd love
to have two or three quality second level players on
the field, and they might have had none, you know,
I mean down to what they had. That's on excuse.
I still think Cam, Hayward, TJ. Watt, all those guys

(33:29):
could have been better at the point of attack. Tackling
wasn't tremendous. But that was disappointing, there's no question, and.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
They've got to feel disappointed in himself. There's no doubt
Captain Cam's out there. Look he doesn't he does not
go for stuff like that, and it's unfortunate, but these
are This is what happens in a big boy league.
You know, you can't sit there and say, well, you know,
we're sitting here at seven and four and they're just
you know, two and ten or whatever. You know, it
doesn't work that way. What Mike Tomlin said, there's no

(33:56):
homecoming games in the NFL, Yeah, that's true. You know.
So it's disappointing. There are days when it just no
matter how hard you try, all you're doing is digging
a deeper hole for yourself. Good teams learn and those
games how to win despite those days, because to me,
the bottom line for all that is somehow, some way,

(34:17):
not everybody enters the stadium with the same sort of
mental RPMs going. Some guys are at max level, some
guys are half that, some guys are a quarter at that.
There's things going on in lives and you don't always
get the same sort of effort, group effort together at
the same high efficiency as you do week in week out.
That's human nature, and I think yesterday was just an

(34:37):
example of that.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
You know, in football, the loss to a team that
you consider inferior is frustrating the fans. This two others
were going into this game. Mike Berzuda had this stat
one of only six teams who had not lost to
a team with a losing record. They beating them all
going into that game. It is a reminder. And you

(34:59):
see this a lot of in baseball, right, like, Okay,
the Yankees are a better team than you know, whoever
they might be playing, Right, that doesn't mean they're gonna
win every single game, right, And people, Right, and the
Yankees lose a game, people don't say, oh my god,
ho everyone needs to be fired, you know, but it is.

(35:20):
And this is a bit of a preamble to the
point I want to make. When you step onto a
baseball diamond or into a boxing ring or onto a
football field or what have you. There's the chance you
can get beat, you know. And when you have a
guy like Kyler Murray, Kyler Murray is a dangerous guy.
I mean, he's been getting a lot of criticism for

(35:42):
his leadership and what is he doing in meetings? And
I can't speak to any of that stuff. I don't
know any of it. I don't know. You know, a
lot of that stuff is, you know, more chatter than
anything else. Maybe it has substance, maybe it does not.
I don't know. I do know this. This guy had
over eight hundred yards rushing an eleven TD three years ago.
Two years ago, he had a quarterback rating over one hundred.

(36:04):
This is a talented guy. And when you let a
team hang around and they've got a James Connor and
they've got a Trey McBride a tight end position, and
they've got a Kyler Murray at the quarterback position, what
happened yesterday might happen to you.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Chuck Dumole used to say, when you lay down with dogs,
you're gonna get flees. And that's exactly what happened. When
you let another team around, hang around you long, because
remember this is a professional league. As Ray Penny used
to say back in the day of Offensive Tackle that
we used to play together with. Ray would say, those
guys are on scholarship too. You know, they're in the
league for a reason, and they can pull it together.

(36:43):
At any given time. There's you just can't account for everything.
You know, you've got to stay tiptoe and bring your
best effort week in week out. But sometimes the desperation
factor gets a little bit higher on some teams, and
sometimes you come from I mean, how else do you
account for a Southwestern Dome team to walk into northeast

(37:04):
December weather with lightning and rain and everything else outside
and and do as well as they did. It's to
me that was one of the mitigating factors too. They
go from the Betty Crocker up and as my brother
calls the stadium down there, you know, to you know,
to actressure and it's a completely different environment. And yet
they pulled together and they were able to manifest that

(37:26):
the effort they needed to come away with a win.
Sometimes the desperation factor is the only thing, the only
difference between winning and losing.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
And at ten am it's ten am for them, right,
all those things working against it, hadn't won on the road, Matt. There,
they're statistically really a pretty terrible football team. Yeah, they
did beat Dallas, right, they did that, which is crazy. Yeah,
it's crazy. I mean, Dallas looks so good right now,
it's hard to even conceive of that happening. And yet

(37:56):
it happened. It can't happen. And again, you know, to
circle back to what you said at the beginning of
the show, when you live on the razor's edge, which
is where this years have had to live the last
since you know, since they've had success, going back to
last year's by what are they fourteen and seven now
in those games since then? I think that's off the
top of my head, I think that's the correct record.

(38:18):
Good record, But boy, it's it hasn't been comfortable.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
No, no, it's at all not like that right now. Yeah,
so a lot to take there, I mean, and I
thought the same thing. If you could jump up on
this Cardinals team, their season's pretty well shot there on
the other side of the country. You got them right
where you want them. Fourth quarter belongs to you. Run
it down their throats. Yeah, But then you discount the
human element of this. I mean, this is a new

(38:42):
head coach that's trying to change the culture there that
all he's trying to do is get effort, dudes, you
know what I mean? Like I looked at their defense
and thought they might need eight or nine new starters
next year. But you know what, that linebacker looks at
it and says, they're gonna get a new starter for
me next year. You think he's gonna put bad tape
out there. He may not be in the league anymore.
Like these are desperate players that are looking at it

(39:03):
almost like preseason cut time, you know, like they're on
trying just to make a roster somewhere. You know, they're
not going to just hang it up. I mean, it's
the NFL, you know.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
And it's the reason I say that too, is about
you know, anybody can beat you in any given day.
The you know, any given Sunday thing is that you know,
I want to take a sneak peek to Thursday and
look Bailey's appy, you know, sort of a mid to
late round draft choice was last year or two years
ago by the Patriots. Hasn't have a second season. Second
season that hasn't played a whole lot. You know, didn't

(39:33):
look great, but under really bad conditions in fo in
Foxborough yesterday, awful, awful, rainy conditions the entire game. But
this is a pro athlete, you know, this is a
guy who was a star in college and is a
star in high school. And therefore, if you allow him
to be capable, is capable. He might not be capable

(39:56):
for seventeen straight weeks, but on Thursday night, he doesn't
have to be cable for seventeen straight weeks. He only
has to be capable for three hours.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
You know, you got to get it right one night,
you know, I mean, that's the essence of it is.
You have that opportunity to display what you're capable of
doing week in and week out. And as I said,
sometimes that effort goes, it goes a little bit different.
You know, you don't know, you know, it's just like
Matt was talking about, you can't there's no way to
calibrate a man, the fighting spirit of a man. You know,

(40:27):
when you are desperate enough and you think I might
get replaced here the way things are going, I can
see you know you're gonna play everything you got and
you know, as I always say, that's how the pyramids
were built. You know, right, five hundred couldn't move twenty tons,
but two fifty could. How's that happen? Well, take a guess,
you know, that desperation factor of getting the job done.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
It does change guys, right, And this Patriot team's crazy.
I mean, Bill Belichick still exists. I mean, I know
he doesn't look quite as good, but he's on the
mount rushmore of coaches. I mean, he's gonna have a
game plan, he's gonna to have his team prepared, especially defensively.
So the Patriots have lost three in a row, they
haven't allowed more than ten points in any of those games.

(41:08):
Do you think all of a sudden the Steelers are
gonna be the one that throws thirty on them in
a short week.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Probably not.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
We were kicking this round. I think. I think it
was the nineteen thirty eight Chicago Cardinals who were the
last team to allow twenty six points over three game
span and not win any of the games twenty six
combined points. So they're stopping teams, right, They're able to
stop teams. And I think, when I want to go

(41:35):
back to something, Matt said, earlier, and Wolf, I'll let
you start this off. So now you're going into this
game on a short week, right, and we know practice
time is precious, right, everybody wants to get out there
and get some practice. You get there's only so much
time to prepare for them, only so much time to
prepare for an opponent in a given week. And so
they talk about mental reps and you got to take
those mental reps, which means you're not actually out there

(41:57):
getting physical reps right and getting a feel for the
speed and those sort of things. So now you're going
to go into a short week with your quarterback injured,
your green dot, you know, defensive quarterback injured. You know,
forgetting Ciamala. Now your left guard who's injured, Minka Fitzpatrick,

(42:19):
who's can play with a broken hand.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
T J.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Watt looks like he's okay, But forgetting Smala, which I
don't want to forget because it's a big loss. I mean,
this guy's been really good for the Steelers that communication.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Now on a short.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Week, uh, banged up, just injury wise, you'd love to
have more time to give these guys the capability of
coming back. But in a short week when it seems
unlikely that they would, giving the nature of their injuries.
How do you get that communication straightened out for guys
who have had quote unquote mental reps and now they're

(42:53):
going to be calling plays and changing plays and being
the main communicators.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
You streamline and you you job your your playlist down
whatever it is you're gonna you're gonna find a essential
core of plays, whether it's defensive, offensive. But you've got
a streamline enough so that you know and this is
the one thing I found with coordinators, They've got to
absolutely believe, beyond all whatever, that you are capable of

(43:19):
doing what they're saying. They're not gonna put guys out
there that like, well, do you think you got seventy
five percent of this or eighty five percent of it? No,
they've got to be convinced. And so what they'll do
is they'll chop down what they're gonna call based on
who's receiving and who's disseminating the information.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, you can't have fifty percent of sixty percent of
the plays. You need one hundred thirty percent.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Of the play right. Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
You know what's going on in Foxborough right now? Belichick
sitting there with his hoodie and a coach's meeting going. Boys,
you know what's about to happen in Pittsburgh. They're about
to chop down their plays, go find what they do best,
and we're gonna stop that. I mean, Belichick's better on block.
He knows what's coming.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, So that's that's Those are the meetings happening right now.
Taking New England.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah, Sa, do you think he's having a donut while
he's doing it, because you know it's over by Providence
for Dunkin Donuts. That's their headquarters, is it.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Okay, you don't know where the most famous donuts in
the country were there.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
I didn't know that. I didn't know that so many
good bakers here in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Well, that's true, that's true.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
So uh and and I think this team presents some
dangers because Wolf, any team that can run the ball
as they have over the last several weeks, they've run
the ball well and stop the run as they trending
in that direction too. And you're the Steelers, and you
know those are kind of some of your strengths as well. Uh,

(44:36):
It's going to be interesting to see if those neutralize
each other.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Well, and there's no question. But the good thing is
they're traveling. The Steelers aren't. It's at home. That's helpful
because a large part of the Thursday night game is
all about rest and recuperation, trying to get your legs back,
trying to get you know, go see the bone cracker,
get him a sus you know, sit in the sawn
or whatever you need to do to get your body
right and get right. That's what you got to do

(45:01):
because it's a short time. And let me tell you something.
You don't want to take the field feeling like you know,
you're like at fifty percent of your your capabilities. You
go make sure you're ready to go, because otherwise it'll
be a bad night.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
I think Thursday night games level of playing field anyway.
I mean, you've just done it much time to prepare,
to prepare. I think it's a lesser product for fans.
That plays exactly into how the Patriots.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Have to play. And believe you mean, they've been scouting
this for a while. They've already got the scouting report
done and thing, you know, in advance of this past week.
So now they're pairing down what they've already paired.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
Down right, giving them a leg up to be able
to pare it down right, not just starting from scratch.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
Cut some of the picket stuff out in search trabisky,
you know those type of things, you know.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Steelers in Patriots playing Thursday night at Acrituer Stadium. For
the most complete selection of Steelers merchandise, from official sideline
gear and authentic memorabilia to our extensive selection of jerseys
and Terrible towels, visit one of the official Steelers Pro
Shop stores located at Akrocher Stadium, Grove City Premium out
Let's or tanger Oute Let's, or visit as online shop
dot Steelers dot com for all your Steelers merchandise needs

(46:03):
directly from the team for Craig Wolfy and Matt Williams
and I'm Rob King. We thank you for listening to
the Point After on Steelers Nation Radio on one O
two point five d ve E