November 20, 2023 • 48 mins
Rob, Matt, and Wolf breakdown the disappointing results for the Steelers up in Cleveland in Week 11.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to 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 Steelers Pro
Shop get it direct from the team at shop dot
Steelers dot com. Alongside Craig Wolfley and Matt Williamson, I'm
Rob King. Thanks very much for being with us on
one O two point five dve N Steelers Nation Radio.
(00:32):
It is time for our look back segment, brought to
you by Brian Patton and the associates. It's all about
the benefits and we are looking back to a most
disappointing thirteen to ten loss in Baltimore yesterday. Craig Wofully,
let's begin with you your thoughts on what you saw
in Cleveland, which evidently was a more partisan crowd than
we're used to. The Browns fans came out in full
(00:55):
throat and big support.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
They were huge, and they were messed, and they were many.
I mean, they were just they were bloodthirsty. That the
overwhelming swelling crescendo of noise that came from there I
have heard, I don't think I've heard it very often,
such as it was in all my years. This is
a trip number thirty four, thirty five into Cleveland for me,
(01:19):
you know. And by the way, I think this is
only the third sunny weekend I've ever seen in that time.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
But just saying, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
But you know, it was for a year and there
was like three funny.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Weeks there, you go, that was it. Ye're there every weekend?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, you're right, man. But the thing about it was,
I think that they caught the Steelers on their heels.
I thought that they they struck the first right hand,
as Big George Forman used to talk about.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
I thought it put the.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Steelers back on their heels a little bit for a
period of time, and then they seemed to right themselves
and work their way out. But initially the first blow
struck was by the Browns, and it was that first
series when they got the sack on Kenny that very
nearly up being a safety.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And I'm glad Wolf and you
guys brought up the environment. I wasn't there, but it
sure seemed like it influenced the game. Not that that
can excuse some communication things, you know, twelve men in
the field, timeouts, things, of that nature. But it did
seem like a hostile environment without question, and the results
are not what we were after, of course, But isn't
(02:24):
the game exactly how we thought it was going to go.
I mean, like, I don't think anyone thought it was
going to be thirty five to thirty with you know,
beautiful passing all over the field. Again, that's not excusing
what the Steelers put out there, especially in the passing game,
but that's what we all kind of thought we were
gonna get.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
First words out of Mike tomlins Mouth exactly the kind
of game we anticipated. You know, you brought up the
boxing reference, and you also brought it up when were
in the locker room talking to Max Starts this morning,
and you know, when I was watching the game, another
boxing reference came to mind for me, and it was
how I felt. You try, I try to, you know,
(02:58):
avoid what you're feeling, although sometimes what you're seeing can
make you feel a certain way from just you know,
maybe I had a bad piece of checken or something,
you know, and it made me feel bad or whatever.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
But you know, when.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
They were getting ready for the second Ali list in
fight and they moved it to Lewiston, Maine, and people
that were at the fight just said.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It just had a bad feel to it, a bad vibe.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
That was because there was gamblers and all kinds of
weird stuff going on and was listening to the other
but it just had a bad feel to it. I
was thinking about that that fight. Another boxing analogy is
I was watching the first half. It just to me
had a bad feel to it. Second play the game,
you're using a timeout. Use another timeout before the first
(03:40):
quarters over use that timeout on defense, by the way,
use another time out. And I know you're working about
personnel grouping, but it just felt out of sink.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
It felt. It felt bad. I couldn't think of any
other way. It didn't.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
It didn't feel like there was a chance to win
the game. To me, just emotionally, I'm like, they're not
going to win this game. And then Jaale and Warren
had the ball run. I'm like, hey, I win this game.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Now. See capture that moment and that emotion that you're feeling.
Now put that into the players. When first of all,
you come out and you have the time out, then
you know, you get backed up, then boom, all of
a sudden, you give up that sack now all of
a sudden, you're sitting on your heels and you're going,
oh my gosh, you know, and you could tell there
was a little bit of you know, guys a little
bit frazzled, a little bit. You know, you could tell
(04:21):
they're running late in the clock getting plays in and
so forth, and for a period of time just looked
like it had them a little bit sitting on their heels.
And that's what I'm talking about. I know, the mindset,
and I know when you come off on that first
couple of plays and it doesn't go real well, like
you know, you mess up and your guy makes a
sack or whatever. You you're kind of like a little
unnerved for a moment because it's like, this is a
(04:44):
bad way to start, and it's only the beginning.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Yeah, and keep it the boxing references. I mean, not
only day Land the first blow, but the first the
whole first round was a series of bad blows. Like
you said, I mean, the crowd, the environment, the results,
both sides of the ball, and then you're down on
the scoreboard and like, uh, you know, what are we
doing here? And it felt like to me, both of
these offenses basically had the same approach. You know, we're
(05:07):
not gonna throw deep. We're gonna kind of you know
conservative here. Uh, Punting's okay. We're gonna protect our quarterback
the best we possibly can in terms of play calling
and style. But the Browns early on through like the
whole kitchen sink at the Steelers, you know, I mean
they're doing different personnel group and they're rotating the right tackle.
I mean it felt like and girounds and reverses and
(05:28):
flee flickers.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
We're just gonna anything they could throw at your wildcat, wildcat.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
You know, I mean, anything you could think of was,
you know, just to kind of get a leg up,
and they did.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
It's interesting too, and I think this is a lot
of fans might be listening right now. And there there
there seemed to be little camps for getting uh we'll
move from uh, we'll move from boxing to war now
your little camps right and and there are camps that
are that are pro Kenny Pickett and anti Matt Canada.
There there are camps that are anti Kenny Pickett. There
are even some people, you know, how come Mike Tomlin as,
(06:00):
I mean, it's to happen, so on so forth. But
I think a lot of fans right now, Matt might
be listening to what you just said and said, well,
that's kind of telling that the Steelers offensive approach. And again,
let's take it out of context of the defense you're
playing against and the environment you're playing in. That people
fans are going to be thinking, okay, well we should
(06:22):
be beyond the point where we are playing our first
round pick quarterback and say, his twentieth game of his career,
the same way the Browns are playing their fifth round
quarterback in the second start of his.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Career hundredercent And that is concerning. There's no doubt about it.
I don't think anyone can condone the way Kenny has
played this season, but especially the last four games or so.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
We lay that stat on us, which I used, by
the way, in the postgame show last night, about what
the Ardgy's shown for in the last four games.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Oh, I don't have a hand.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
On tame point three.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
I believe it is right in that neighborhood. I mean,
it was a struggle to get to one hundred yesterday.
I mean it was a struggle on the last you know,
Hail Mary is play to even get to one hundred.
So the passing game isn't good enough. I mean, no matter,
there's more to blame than just one guy, and it's
not just Kenny, but I do see him turning down throws.
I thought the protection was awful in this game. I
(07:16):
thought there blitz pick up was horrendous.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
And one thing I'm going.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
To fight you on a little bit, not again to
excuse it. I do think that was the best defense
in the league though.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Sure, yeah, I said you had to take out Yeah,
you have to take out the defense, and you have
to take out the environment. And of course the Steelers
would counter with, well, you can't take it out.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I'm just saying what.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Fans are thinking right now, because we're in it. We're
in I think an emotional period for Steelers fans, right,
I mean this, this feels like, well, from we talked
about this a little bit in the locker room, this
feels like more than one loss somehow.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Well.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I can understand having come out of Brownsville there a
couple of times with losses on my own right as
a player, you know, and you hate leaving there feeling
that way. It makes that bus ride so dead gum
long on the way home. I really it does chap
just chap you a little bit. But the fact of
the matter was, Look, they had every opportunity to win it.
(08:13):
This wasn't a blowout, this wasn't anything that was you know,
to me, in my own mind, they slugged it out.
They came up short because in the critical downs, and
again I go to the third downs. Third downs. If
you don't make third downs, you're in trouble unless you
can go seventy five yards like Jalen Warren. All right,
that's nice because then you go first down. Don't worry
about second, third.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Or fourth.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Okay, that's just beautiful stuff. But you don't get that
very often. So in my mind, you know, it's just
a factor of you come out there and you came
up short. You're gonna have to go back and reload.
But let me say this, there are still promising signs
that are coming along. I mean, I could sit here,
and I know people want to sit there and go, oh,
you're being you know, you're just kind of like trying
(08:57):
to pull the daisies up there and you know, be
happy about the no. But I see things that are
happening that I take at Landon Roberts. What a great
game he had. What a great game when you're down
some people a pair a pair in the inside there,
and what a great game. I could go on and
name some other stuff, but the fact is they came
up short. It was a dog on tough fight.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
It was.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It was a brutal If you heard that noise level,
I'm telling you what, when you're down on that field
and you got a hair trigger like Miles Garrett sitting
outside you, you know, maybe a player removed that that
will lead to some very close calls when you go
to a silent count.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And the reason I said, but I said, Matt about
this feeling like more than one loss, Yes, because when
you go six and three and you're the first team
in NFL history to have a winning record, when you're
out gained in all nine games, when the eye test
is telling you we're not moving the ball enough, we're
winning by a formula that has the slenderest of margins,
(09:56):
and we've won nine in a row like that. But evidently, eventually,
even with Mike Tomlins success in games like that over
the course of his career, that's gonna you know, it
might you know, even out a little bit. Even if
it doesn't even out all the way. Sure, if it
even evens out a little bit, well, that just tells
you there's some losses coming. And so you know, when
you lose a game like this, I think for the
(10:17):
people that saw the team go six and three but
didn't buy in because of the way they were winning,
and because of the lopsided losses they had in two
of their three losses, and even Jacksonville was one sided
statistically more than it was in the scoreboard, I think
people will look at this and say, aha, this loss
is the manifestation of my fears. And so that's why
(10:39):
you almost take almost appropriate some of those wins and
make them feel like losses even.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Though it's only one loss. And the win and lost column.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Yeah, it's such a week the week league, you know.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
I mean that, Yes, we all overreact on Monday's good, bad, ugly,
no matter what. And I do think what you said
was really well said in that a lot of people
are looking at this team going it's not sustainable. You know,
six to zero and one score games really wasn't sustainable.
You're bound to come back to earth in a tight one,
for sure. I mean, that's why they're one score games
because they're evenly you know, evenly matched teams from much
(11:13):
of the game. But I do think there's more overreaction
than there should be today. I mean, isn't this the
game we expected to happen. I picked a sixteen thirteen win.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
By the Steelers.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
I thought there'd be a lot of field goals, a
lot of struggles to get first downs, things of that nature,
which is exactly what it was. I do think the
better team won, but I don't think all of a sudden, Ah,
I told you so this team stinks, is the right answer.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, Well, Charlie Batch picked thirteen to ten. We also
picked the stage win, so we got to score right,
and that is a good point. But again, it's emotional Monday.
This is the this is the way things are going
to be. This is the reaction there's going to be
among fans when you lose a game like this, you know,
to a backup quarterback making a second start, because you
(11:58):
know what Sealers fans are doing. Let's face it, some
of the players probably are too. You're like, okay, let
me get that number two pencil out. Okay, we're six
and three. Well, here's a backup quarterback that's seven and three.
There's a backup quarterback that's.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Eight and three.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Now we have the Patriots and we have the Cardinals,
and there's ten wins and holy Mackley, yeah the Colts
and look at us.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Go well, you still got to play the game on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Right, Can I say this? You know what the players
are thinking. I got twenty four hours to get over
this thing. Then I got to and load and get
ready for the next one. That's what it is, right,
you know, because you've got no alternative. There's nowhere to run,
there's nowhere to hide, and there's nobody coming in from
the east on a white horse that's going to help you.
All Right, it's all about you reload. You gotta get
it done when you identify the factors that are keeping
(12:44):
you from putting up more points. And I'm sorry, I'm
not one of those guys about style points and winning ugly. Listen, man,
I know what winning ugly is. I married my beautiful
bride of thirty years thirty years ago. Convince Iterr and
marry me. That's winning ugly, buddy. Okay. You know, so
when you talk about style points and forget about it
if you get one more point. I know you want
(13:05):
to talk about It's not sustainable. Listen, nothing's always sustainable,
you know. But you just enter into the game and
you fight for each and every win. It's like Cam
Hayward said when he uttered the immortal words, the heck
with I'll like a paraphraser, Yeah, you know, the heck
with it. I know how hard we work, you know
(13:26):
what I mean. And that's what it is. It's the
men in the locker room. It's how hard they're laying
it out there. They let it out there hard. This
past weekend. That was full on, as much the gas
as they could put in there, and it was it
came up.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
A little short. But that's that's what the NFL is.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Well.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
And as I've said before, I'd rather win ugly than
lose pretty absolutely. Of course, unless I'm on the golf course.
I want to look good out here. Yeah, I want Hey,
you look good out there. No, I know I'm kidding you.
You know you want to win no matter what it is.
But I'm the golf course, uh, on the NFL when
you're when you're playing, you know, I used to say,
(14:04):
I I always equated that you know, I played a
lot of pickup basketball over the years. And you get
into the gym and you know the guys, and you
choose up teams and you look around and you say,
you don't say to yourself, boy, I'm gonna score a
lot of points, cause you say, how can our team win?
What do we need to do to win?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Like, winning is ultimately what you do, and as a player,
you have to have that mentality. Now we have a
former player, we have a scout in Matt, and we
have whatever the hecku I am in the room, and
and so we're trying to, you know, look at both
sides of it. And I love the players perspective. I
think you have to have that perspective. I don't care
how you win, you win, but you also, you know,
(14:41):
you are looking for signs that, Hey, and we were
we were all hoping that we're going to see signs
that at this time of the year it was going
to be getting better and offensively. It's hard to make
that case.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
It is well passing game running game. The passing game
is very, very, very problematic. There's just no way around that.
The running game to me is I don't say fixed,
I don't think anything in this sport or this this
league ever gets fixed. Fixed for now and again it's
week to week. But I love the way they run
the ball, and boyd you know Wolf mentioned Roberts. I
mean that was a great right spot. But nothing brighter
(15:17):
than Jalen Warren out there. I mean Jalen Warren's quickly
turning into a star. I mean not just oh, that's
a nice story for an undrafted free agent. He's turned
into a star. So the running game, to me, is
in a fine spot. The passing game needs to be
evaluated at all levels without question. I mean, Kenny's under
pressure way too much. I didn't see many adjustments in
terms of the blitzes and stuff. You saw a lot
(15:38):
of the same blitzes getting home. Frankly, the Browns are
just better upfront than the Steelers, and they're better than
just about any offensive line up front. Kenny's turning down
too many throws. He's not accurate enough. There were certainly
some communication errors between him and receivers where I'm not
on the same page, I'm putting that in quotes. You know,
one guy runs one way and the ball goes the other,
and that makes him look terrible, but it's not always him.
(16:00):
I don't understand why Friarmouth isn't being used more one
throw between the numbers. I mean, you can't win that
way going forward. So there's a lot of critique with
the passing game. But yeah, it should be better. But
how are you gonna get it better? Like Wolfe said,
go to work tomorrow, get twenty four hours to relax,
go to work and see if you can make it
(16:20):
better against the Bengals.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
But there are problems.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Well, that is the elephant in the room. There's a
lot of meat in the bone of that elephant, and
we're gonna attack that. Three carnivores and justin zero percent
body fat over here, We're all gonna we're gonna attack that.
We're gonna be looking at that offensive passing game. What
comes up next when we continue on the Point After
on Steelers Nation Radio and one O two point five DV.
(16:53):
This is the Point After presented by Parks Casino. Is
today your Lucky Day bet Parks by Brian Patton is
So it's all about the benefits and by this Jeerler's
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dot Steelers dot com. Thanks for being with us for
the point after alongside Craig Wolfly and Matt Williamson, I'm
rob king. Okay, so uh the passing game, we'll get
(17:18):
to the good part for let's get let's just let's
just dive right in because I'm gonna set you up
this way. Wolf The team goes seven and two after
the break. Last year, they're running the football, They're not
really making too many plays down the field, They're not
turning it over. What are all the media types over
in the side of the room here, I'm looking across
the table at Craig Wolfley sitting next to Matt Williamson.
(17:39):
We're all saying, how can this be improved upon? This
is not sustainable. This is not going to be good
enough to challenge the top teams in the league. Therefore,
we need to press the ball down in the middle
of the field. We need to or attack the middle
of the field, pressed the ball down the field because
it's Matt pointed out, what fewest fewest are among the
fewest big plays in the in the in the passing
game last year in the league by the Steelers.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Or yeah, there explosives were really poor.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, worst are among the worst in the league, right,
So we need more of that. So they work on
it in Latrobe. They work on it in the preseason.
We see it in the preseason. Five drives, five touchdowns.
It's going in the right direction. You win the toss
against the forty nine ers, you're so confident it's going
(18:22):
in the right direction. You say, well, we're gonna take
the ball right and then now we're here and all
that's just gone in a puff of smoke.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
It's just gone.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
All that attack the middle of the field, attack down
the field, make big plays. We saw a couple of
big plays early in the season. It's gone. Where did
it go?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Well, I wouldn't say everything's gone. You still get explosives.
I mean, just Jalen Warren all.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Talking about in the passing game. I want to get
back to Jailen Warren and I do. I do, but
I just want to.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
I can't separate from OK when you say explosives, it's
running passing. What have you returns? And you know whatever?
To me and my mind, that's you know, that's all
about the explosives. I understand you want to If you
regulated only to the passing game, that's a problem. That's
an issue. You're gonna have to attempt it. But one
of the issues has been you've not had the big
three that would be in Deontay Johnson and Pickens and
(19:16):
friar Mouth.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
All together on the field until this week.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yes, until this week. And if you thought it was
going to be uh uh, you know, Pat step on
there and all of a sudden, this passing game is
going to be You're You're crazy. It doesn't work that way.
You got to get back into it. I mean I
watched Pat. Pat took a screen pass, you know. One
of the first things he did he stumbled, you know,
he had fresh legs, is excited. I got the ball,
(19:39):
I'm gonna turn the north and south and then you
trip over the grass monster a little bit, you know,
and that sort of thing. It takes a little time
get your sea legs back. That's why you know you
can't if you're boxing, you gotta get in the ring
and spa. You got to knock off the ring rust
and then you go out and you gotta have fight
and go for real. But it's all part of getting
back to and ramping up to speed a game speed.
So the fact is I think that it's going to
(20:02):
take continued work. But where else are they going to go?
I mean, you got to you gotta hang with this
and the other thing that that will help so much.
We saw the screen game and how important that is
to the Steelers. That screen game can be huge. There
were on a couple occasions there was just one block
away from real big damage done to the Browns.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
You know there are there is that caveat that's.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Kind of floating in the corner of my mind, and
you brought it up, and I'm glad you did. You
know the Steelers, we know there's not a ton of
depth at the receiving positions tight end and wide receiver.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
There's not.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
So part of me wants to think that maybe the
reasons they weren't attacking the field in a different way.
You lose Deontay Johnson midway through that game against the
forty nine Ers, and since that time, from that time
where he got injured until this time, you're now relying
on a second year receiver, and then Friarmuth gets hurt.
(21:01):
Now you're relying on a tight end who you love.
What he can do, What Darnel Washington can do down
the line. He's a guy that you figure is a
guy who can block at the NFL level, is going
to learn the intricacies of receiving two three years from now,
he's going to give you a tremendous maybe even next
year soon, I'm going to give you a tremendous tandement
(21:21):
tight end, but not quite ready. So does that excuse
a little bit? And I say excuse sounds like excuses,
But does that explain, perhaps Matt a little bit, the
reticence to do what they were doing when everybody was
healthy in the preseason and then okay, you got everybody
back great, as you said, we'll knock off some game
rust and let's try this against somebody other than the
(21:45):
best defense in the league at their place, in front
of a raucous crowd.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
And I'm not going to excuse anything, but I do
want to explain some things. First of all, yesterday's a
perfect example. They've faced the most difficult slated defenses of
any offense in the league this year, and I think
the one they played yesterday is number one in the
whole league.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Plus the environment.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Okay, Now, I was on the radio at training camp
every practice for three hours a day. You know, and
it's hard to fill three hours a day. But we
watched every practice. We talked so much about in breaking
routes and creating explosives. To Wolfe's point, I think they've
created explosives throughout the twenty twenty three season run pass however,
(22:26):
much better than last year. And watching those practices and
being on the air so many more in breaking routes
from Pickin's certainly Robinson and Washington red zone stuff that
they were working on the right things, and then going
into the Niner game, I said over and over and over, Okay,
I think this offense, and it showed in the preseason,
(22:47):
they're gonna have a lot more in breaking routes. They're
gonna have more explosive concepts. But it's not gonna happen
against the Niner, folks, because Fred Warner's out there and
don't don't hold the Niner.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Games so hard to attack in the middle of the field.
It's so hard to attack.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
And this this Rounds team is probably right there with
the Niners in terms of attacking the middle of the field.
And I'm just explaining some things that I think is
in their head because all they care about is winning
the game.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Not.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
We need to get better on the statute. We need
Matt's stats to look better. You know, we don't care
one bit or your fantasy team. They don't care about
any of that's right, or even what's Kenny gonna do
or Darnel Washington three years from now?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
How can we win this game?
Speaker 5 (23:21):
How can we win this game? You have to get
in their head. And like the Titan game, to me,
everything was sideways. But I really believe Kenny's ribs were
a massive problem and they did not want him getting
hit time and time again and holding the football, So
the ball came out ridiculously quick into the flats. Okay,
and you'll won, you know. And I mentioned Robinson, I
(23:42):
mentioned Washington. I like both those players, but I think
right now, at the different stages of their career, both
of them, as a tight end and wide receiver respectively,
are more of an asset in the run game than
the passing game. But you're winning, so keep doing it,
you know what I mean. Like, I don't really fault
the approach. I fault the execution in this game, and
(24:04):
the opponent had a lot to do with it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Both what we've been saying since Game one, though, I'm sorry.
Most eighty percent of it is execution eighty percent. You know,
I understand you want, you know, offensive coordinators, defensive coordinators,
what have you. Coaches make decisions, they do, you know, personnel,
all those things. But at the same time, it always
(24:26):
comes down to the guys across the white line. When
you walk out there and they call a play in
the huddle, which again this is I know, I'm an
old guy. I'm I'm as old as dirt, all right,
maybe one day older than water, two days older than dirt.
But the fact is, you know, you go out there
and they call a play in the huddle, your identity
for the moment is that play. That's what it wants. Job.
(24:49):
You got one job, that's you micro manage whatever is
going on in your life right there by one and
it's that one play. And you got one eleventh of
that play and whatever. The result of your one eleventh
says everything about you. The whole group of eleven's coming together,
That's what it says about your unit. You know, whether
(25:10):
it's successful or not. If everybody does their unit there,
they're one eleventh get into fractions, I get lost. But
you know, then you've got you've got an opportunity to
have success. And that's to me, that's the quintessential way
that an offense and defense is built from the ground up.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
By the way, I talked a lot about basketball and
just failed to execute a two foot toss into the garbage.
I went off rail and it just I went backboard
and it just it donked and it Yeah, there's too
much paper now I'm blaming it on the.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Best part is if you ever played you ever played
basketball with a wrestler, their labs can bounce out the
half court.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
No, yeah, no, fun, they don't.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah they If somebody ever if I was ever playing
pick up and someone's like I had a wrestling background,
I'm like, oh no, man, because it just lunge it
you really quickly and like butt their head.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Into your midsection and Jesus super quick and they're lowing the.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Fun to fight for rebounds. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
If whatever you're doing, it doesn't hurt them for sure.
So okay, so let's uh, let's move off.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
That because I think you, guys, unless there's anything else
you want to add about the lack of passing game,
if we covered it.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
Here, one thing I would throw out though, that to
defend coaches is there's nothing coaches hate more than we
think we're getting covered two I call a cover two beater.
It's there and they don't throw it. And that's something
we'll never know, but I do think there's a lot
of that going on the last couple of games and season,
(26:37):
where if a guy's open, the ball has to come
out for sure, if you miss the throw because Miles
Garrett's crashing India, I can understand that. But when the
when we spend one hundred hours as a coaching staff
for this moment, cover two, cover two beater, I'm just
using that example and you don't throw it. That's a
problem and that's happening time and time again. That needs
to be addressed.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
And to reiterate, we don't know, and we don't know.
I mean, you know, look, Mike Tomlins very comfortable playing
close games. He's got a great record in close games.
We've seen the team have success using the formula of
running the football, throwing it a little bit, not turning
it over, you know. So is that what he wants
is is Matt Canada calling the right plays? Does he
(27:19):
have the right schemes? Just Kenny pickt not perform, you know.
And one thing I will say is I don't know
how the coaches feel about this either. Nobody, no coach
has thrown Kenny under the buss. And for that, I mean,
you'll see some comments around the league where coaches will
throw players under the bus. I mean, you have to
be you want to be honest, but I don't. I'm
(27:41):
a big fan, not a big fan, not a big
fan of coaches throwing team players in, not a fan
of that.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I said that this this morning. It's a dangerous time
right now in that locker room. You've got to keep
it in the locker room, right. And then again in
the Three Rivers locker room, on every wall there was
a science said, which you see here, what you say here,
what you do here, stays here when you leave here.
And I believe in that totally because the sanctity of
the locker room, of keeping your business inside should be
(28:08):
between the players and the coaches. And that's it, and
that's how you form a foundation to move forward. When
nobody's sitting there trying to look to point fingers but saying, Okay,
we have a problem. We're not winning, you know, we're
not winning enough. However, well, let's fix it. How do
you fix it? Get on a practice field and you
start winning your one eleventh.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
So I did want to point out the rather obvious,
and you know, not a popular thing to say in Pittsburgh, but.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Man is Miles scart good.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I mean, holy back, I mean, you know, right from
the opening his his fingerprints were all over that game,
right from the very opening play in which I thought
it was a safety. I'm surprised didn't challenge the sack
of Kenny Pickett. Listen, man, this guy we all have
a not warm place in our bellies for him because
(28:59):
of you know, him ripping off you know, Mason Rudolph's
helmet and try to hit him over the head with it.
He's never going to be a fan favorite in Pittsburgh.
But guy can play football.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
There's no question he can play football. I mean you
knew that going in. And yet I still say, I
take take DJ Watt any date.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Oh yeah, No, I'm not trying. I'm not. I'm not
comparing him. I'm just saying I am I am.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Because I'm saying I'll go I'll take Teach go in
there no doubt about it. But it's not to put
down Miles Garrett.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
He is.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
He is a terrific talent.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Okay, so so I'll say I was reading.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I don't know if it was the athletic or I
don't want to besmirch the operation that wasn't writing it.
But they're talking about mid season awards. You're like, Okay, well,
the defensive player that year definitely comes down to either
Miles Garrett or Micah Parsons. Yeah, what how does t J.
Watt not even get it? I mean, first of all,
I think he should be leading the conversation, That's what
I think. But secondly, to not even be in it,
(29:54):
to just dismiss him as he's not into it.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
That's it's ludic, you that's the right word.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
However, I do think it's interesting because these teams are rivals.
It's a bus ride. They both were drafted the same year.
They're both elite edge players for sure, and frankly, in
head to head competition, TJ's been the better player than
Garrett when the Browns played the Steelers. I do think
there's a misconception in this town that Ah, that guy's overrated.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
He's not that great.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
I know, he's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, he is, unbelievable, and there were some positives coming
out of the game and for the Steels, and we
can talk a little bit more. I want to get
more into Jaalen Warren. But I thought, once again, Joey
Porter Junior, I just love the way they're playing him.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
I love what he does.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
I thought he got a very bad, you know, defensive
holding an interference call. I thought that was I thought
that was a bad call. And I think Cooper he
kind of had a couple veteran things on him. With
the very first completion of the game, he kind of
got his left hand up on Porter's left shoulder pad
and kind of pulled off from just to create a
little bit of room kind of a listen that that
great move by Cooper. But I think Joey Porter Junior
(31:02):
has stood up extremely well in coverage.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
That's just my I.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Mean, he's becoming one of those guys where you're like,
hey man, good luck.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
You know, he's getting the most difficult task.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
He's getting the most difficult tasks. I think he's been
super impressive.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
One hundred agree. And did Cooper get the better of
him a fair amount? Absolutely? I mean, but that happens
in this league. I mean being a corner.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
So he's getting win three billion dollars.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
It was a fifth pick in the draft a couple
of you know, ten, eight years ago, and he's been
these a million yards in the league.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
He's not the best receiver in the league, but he's.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
Not far off, right, you know, a great player that's
a focal point of their offense. And I think Porter
is learning on the job as well as any rookie
could be expected to.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I think he's doing terrific. Yeah, and he's just got
to got a grit. You got to bite your teeth
a little and you know, bite down your teeth a
little bit. Remember the calls a lot of times go
against the rookies when you get two, three, four, and
you start building up a reputation, and the referees are
kind of like, oh, that's okay, that's okay, that's so
and so. Right, you know, it tends to go a
little bit different.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
That's so and so. Yeah, you know that's so and so.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Real quick to ref note, I don't think this is
a poorly ref game.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Oh please, wait a minute, but I'm going to be
talking about high Smith.
Speaker 5 (32:17):
I was just saying at the end of the day,
the Browns only committed one one penalty for ten yards.
I found that a little fishy to me. I'm just saying,
it's not the only reason.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Okay, if we're going.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
To gripe here, let's ripe Alex Highsmith. I can't believe
he got called for that.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Oh, I thought that's horrible.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
That was unbelievable that you could call that. I mean you,
I know you go by the strict sense of the rule. Well,
a face mask hit, a face mask or something. What
could you ask more of a defensive lineman jumping in
the air, trying to get him to pull the ball down,
sacking the quarterback, hitting him while he's throwing, and then
being able to pull away and land on the ground
(32:57):
next to the quarterback. What more could you possible we
want from a guy? To me, that was just so
you want to talk about Ludacris. That was the epitome
of Ludacros.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Steelers lose by the final score of thirteen to ten.
With the loss, the Browns improved the seven and three
the Steelers drop to six and four. Much more on
this game, and maybe a little sneak peek forward to
the Bengals when we continue on the Point After on
Steelers Nation Radio on one on two point five DVE.
(33:32):
This is the Point After presented by Parks Casino. Is
today your Lucky Day bet Parks by Brian Patton and associates.
It's all about the benefits and by the students pro
shop get it direct from the team at shop dot
Steelers dot com. Okay, so one of my notes was
JPJ is good. We've handled that right. He's so, let
me ask, let me throw one more young defender out there,
(33:55):
Keanu Benton. And you know, there are plays in which
you'll see a flash of movement, like when Ryan Shazier
was linebacking for the Steelers and there was like the
guy's running looks like a hole and then there's like
a flashing movement and the guy goes down. You're like, well,
that had to be Shazier. You didn't even have to
see who it was, right, he just knew who it was.
On the Steelers defensive line. That guy to me is
(34:16):
Cam Hayward. Like flashing move there's Cam Hayward and the
guy goes down. He's running along. Oh wait a minute,
now he's down.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
What happened? Cam? Happened? You know?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Keanu Benton had a tackle. I was watching the game,
watching the first half of my son, and it was
one of those corner of your eye kind of things.
He's like, he was that cam and I was like, no,
I think that was Benton. I mean he's he can
That's a big man who can move. That one play
really caught my eye. But he keeps catching my eye.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
No question about it. And I love his low pad level.
I love his ability to use his hands at such
a young age. I mean when he clubs, he clubs.
People move, Thick bodies move, and he's one of these
guys that can hold a point. He gets down there,
and I mean he looks like he enjoys the violence
the trenches, you know. And if you don't love that
sort of stuff, it's a bad place to be. But
(35:05):
if you do love that sort of thing, there is
no place better than to play that nose tackle position
because he's in the thick of it, with big bodies
all the way around, thick about it. He was up
against Posik, Teller and Botonio. That's as good a threesome
in the league on the inside there, and he more
than held his own. You look at these guys again,
Landon Roberts, you want to talk about a downhill, bang
(35:28):
this guy here. I can't even say how how impressed
I was with some of his work.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
On Sunday, Wolf and I were interviewing Vince Williams, a
wonderful guy. Oh great guy, saw spoken and I was
asking how he got into off the field. Yeah, how
he got into football? He said, basically it was the
one place where he was allowed to hit people and
not get in trouble.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Here.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yeah, so I can hit little Johnny as hard as one.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
They're like, not only that, We'll clap you on the
back for you, sign me up, might give me.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
A scholarship for it and pay you well.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, the Alumni week we were talking to the Seation radio.
But I'm sorry your thoughts on on Keanu Benton.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
One hundred percent of everything that Wolf just said, a
couple of things I want to throw out. In addition
to when you watched his Wisconsin tape, sometimes he would
get his pads high and that's when he would get neutralized.
When and you see it less and less and less
at the pro level, I mean there would be one
out of three snaps. You're like, he came out of stance,
kind of high and he's just hand fighting, you know,
he's driving off the ball. And then the other thing
(36:28):
which you were talking about was it's almost like to it,
you know, like to it sometimes.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Yes, absolutely, like was that Camerton? Yeah, exactly right, Bro,
he was one of those guys for sure. I loved
Stefan no doubt, and like to it.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
You couldn't have a better mentor of running to the
football practice habits than Hayward. I mean, it works out
really well for the young man.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
So so that was impressive and then you know, just
touched on it earlier, but got to go to it again.
I mean, Jalen Warren, if you can trust my math,
last three games, thirty five carries three one hundred and
eighteen yards. That's nine point one yard to carry. I mean,
he is just impressive.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
He's He's produced three hundred and sixty eight total yards
in the last three games. Three sixty eight is a
part time garries. Last week he's all right, I mean
that's it's ridiculous. And eight point six yards per touch
in the last three games. I mean one of them
came on a super long one, so forty three touches.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
So he's got the ability to break a super long
one exactly.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
You know, he does it consistently.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
He's near the top of the league in explosive runs.
I mean, not to mention people don't look him in
this light. He's great in protection as it and loves it.
And I know I'm a nerd about this stuff, but
his receiving metrics, like his underlying metrics like yards per
route run, they're like first or second in the league.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
You know, it's like him and Christian McCaffrey. I mean,
he's a phenomenal player.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
I don't have to Well, it's it's interesting. I was
listening to your podcast and you're talking about him beginning
to emerge with some of these numbers as not just
a good story, not just a good player, right right, right,
This is becoming more than that. This guy's like becoming
a wet like a legitimate, maybe star level player right
in front of us.
Speaker 5 (38:12):
I'm starting to believe that I used to think, boy,
he's a really good compliment to nausey, and this has
nothing to do with nausey.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
I't me just say, if you isolate.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
Warren what he brings to the game, not just once
in a while, but like on every snap or a
route run perspective, I think he might be a top
ten running back in the league right now.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
There's no question.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Yeah he's.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
I mean he's think about all the tackles he ghosts
people on, all the arm tackles he runs through, all
the times that he puts the shoulder down, not the helmet,
puts the shoulder down and runs behind those pads. I mean,
this guy is five to eight, two hundred and fifteen pounds.
He's mostly thighs and thigh boards, you know, and when
(38:53):
he gets behind those pads, he is a tough guy
to tackle. And you gotta love the fact it's hard
to find it behind those big hogs.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
He's just so combative, Like we could we said we
were talking about boxing a little bit, Like you get
the feeling like if he could stop in a cloak,
it's gonna be it's gonna be tackled. If he could
drop the football, like fight the guy and then pick
the football back up, he would do it.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
I mean, he's out there and he got that one him.
Was it it was? Uh? Was it Newsome or deel
Ward maybe?
Speaker 2 (39:19):
But the one where he broke to his left and
ended up going across the field towards the out of
bounds and it's a it's a battle of stiff arms
between him and whoever is trying to bring him down,
and they're like pumping each other with you know, left
and right arms, and it was it was terrific. It
was a great battle. But I love the way the
kid battles and I think he's he might have learned
a lot of that from Nagy, you know, because not again,
(39:40):
you know, is a is a battler. But right now,
Jalen Warren has got a hot hand, and I think
he's got to see more of the pigskin.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
I mean, everyone has the conversation he's better than Nausey
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
I don't even care about that. I have nothing.
Speaker 5 (39:53):
I don't care about what nause he's doing. I just
know that that guy needs the ball a lot.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
You know, he's really.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Good, right and and he had twelve touches yesterday. You
would think that would hopefully continue to go up because
it has been small doses, will it be more? And again,
you know, there was a couple of things and we
look at this game again and it feels like an
extension of things that people are prejudiced about that happened
earlier in the season. You know, Matt Canada came out
(40:21):
in the last to his designs in the last two
weeks prior to this one and score touchdowns right touchdown, touchdown,
opening drive and did some things that I really liked.
I thought that, you know, trying to get you know,
picking some early touches at times, trying to get Deontay
some really Now I want to see, can can you
get into a flow in a rhythm and I don't
(40:44):
care to your point, Wolf if it's over the middle,
under the middle, to the side. Can you find a
way early in the game without sacrificing the run game
to get Pickens and Friar Muth and Deonte a touch
somewhere somehow, some way?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
What game was that?
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Well they got they ran pickings on a reverse. You know,
they're trying to do different ways to get these guys
involved and keep them involved. Can you do that schematically?
Now you're talking about an offensive line, because that's such
a huge part of it, obviously the running game. Can
you do that and still keep that run flow going
as an offensive lineman sacrifice the play to get a
get pickings to touch, Deontay a touch, firemouth to touch.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I don't think there's any question you can, you know.
And it starts with play action, and play action starts
with running the ball. Well, you know, once you start
cracking that thing and and guys are getting lit up
on the offensive line. I'm the defensive line. By the
offensive line coming off the ball and rolling them back,
you know, you make them have to go through their
run reads. And that's that's what you want. Now, you
(41:47):
just suck them in with that play action. There was
nothing better than play action. I as a guard, I
loved it because you're getting that hunch down stance. You
kind of start, you know, flexing your arms and make
it look like you're gonna tee off right away, you know,
and you get those guys going, oh, here we go,
we're gonna And I've even had conversations, not me and
my you know my part, but Matt Millen, you know,
(42:08):
he go, oh for you, it looks like you're coming off.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
On an ice little bog, you know, and you give
him that look.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Then boy, you come off pow and then you just
pull up and then you throw it over the top
of them and it's a beautiful thing. And I think
that is something you can do. And the screen games, again,
the screen games are huge. There was a couple like
the first screen where Kenny just didn't get it over
the guy who blitzed up the middle. Jalen didn't check
the guy. I don't know whether he's supposed to or not,
(42:36):
but he slid out and the guy got a hand
up and batted the ball away. But that thing was
set up for a big play. And there was another screen.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
That would have gone through another actor. So it's like
the envelope. Please.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
The offensive lineman for Best Actor, Craig Wolfley.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Chue could always say, be an actor, be an actor,
make him think you're gonna you know, make him think
it's a pass. You know, you set up and everybody
you know, da da da, And then then he say,
hopefully just do what you do, so.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
You know, I just go ahead and get beat. I guess, oh,
now that wasn't gonna happen. Come on now, So I guess, Matt,
when I look at this, and again, extenuating circumstances, not excuses. Right,
you have your full you have your full competent players.
You're going into the road again, another hostile environment in
Cincinnati this coming week. Not the same caliber of defense. No,
(43:26):
I do love their two middle linebackers. I think Wilson
and Pratt. Although Wilson now is getting in a lot
of trouble for that hip drop tackle.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
But he and.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Prattle not illegal yet. He and Crack can really run
and really hit. They might make the middle of the
field more difficult to attack.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
I don't know schematically we're or statistically with the with
the Bengals rank. But if you think, okay, well, part
of the problem may have been that we didn't have
all these guys together. Now we have them all together.
This is the unit we were working on all these
things with in La Trobe and in the preseason, and
we haven't had him since, you know, midway through that
(44:00):
forty nine Ers game, when Deontay Johnson went down with
an injury. Now we're not facing the top defense in
the league. Could this be maybe the beginning of what
we were expecting to see X amount of you know,
weeks ago, ten weeks ago or whatever, and there were
just too many detours on the highway to get to
this point.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
Possibly.
Speaker 5 (44:19):
I mean, I think yesterday was the highest hurdle to
get over without question. And I'm not fighting you, but
it's November, I mean thirty one. Other offenses don't have
all their guys either.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
No, no, no, no, no no. I totally agree with you, Mat.
I'm biing Devil's advocate a little bit here.
Speaker 5 (44:36):
Yeah, I mean so. And they are pretty healthy right now.
So health isn't an excuse at this point by any stretch.
But we know injuries are all rampant across the league.
The homework I've done on the Bengals, which is stage
three of ten or whatever is, they allow a lot
of explosives. Their linebackers are very good. I do know
their defensive coordinator, a Marumo, whose name I never pronounced well,
(44:58):
is a very very good schemer. They're very physical defensive front.
I mean, their ends are bigger than most ends.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
They they're very Peverard and Henderson yeah, good players for they've.
Speaker 5 (45:08):
Both been banged up, but they have two new safeties.
They've allowed a lot of explosives this year, and the
offense hasn't helped them a lot. They've been on the
field quite a bit too, So I think this Bengals
defense can be had is an easier challenge than yesterday
for sure.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Right, and maybe you can get back to well what
you were doing before, which is again, even if we're
not going to see and I don't think we're going
to see three hundred.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Yards passing, right what you said four? And oh when
they get two?
Speaker 1 (45:34):
When Ken he has two hundred yards passing, So they
may get they may get to that level. But can
you get back to you know, maybe winning the time
of possession battle And again a lot of that has
to do with running the football, but you know, give
your defense a break, play that complimentary football again, which
you did for a couple of weeks, and again, tough
challenge against the Browns, but you didn't get it done either.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
No, you didn't get it done. And you realize that
and recognize and now you've got to go about the
the process of rebuilding that and going forward with it. Look,
it's of course it can happen. It can happen anytime.
I mean, this is the thing that players think about.
They don't think about well, you know, maybe in two
or three weeks, but no, I mean, once you've done
(46:15):
it before, you can do it again. And I really
think that the players are taking an attitude where they
understand where they're at. They understand they got this defense
is doing a great job. The offense they got to
come along and do some things to help them out
a little bit. But again, once they get that footing back,
that that run game going, Man, there's so many good
things that occur when you run the ball and consistently
(46:38):
run the ball and physical punishment dished out. It's great.
And I'll tell you what if if there's ever more
of an enticement to win a game of seeing the
escaloser in action, you know at that stadium, it's a
mighty wonderful thing to see.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
Yeah, the background and it just mac quickly. This just
looms as you know, you've dropped the six and four.
Now the Bengals are five and five. It just feels
like the loser of this game is going to be
and you just went from the fifth seed to the
seventh seed the Steelers. The Bengals are fighting for their
playoff lives right This is a huge game for them.
(47:15):
But the Steelers, man, you know, if you lose now
you're you're both six and five.
Speaker 5 (47:19):
Absolutely, it's a very pivotal game, especially the division you're in.
The conference, you're in tiebreakers, all those type of things.
You can't keep dropping division games, especially against backup quarterbacks.
I mean this isn't Burrow and chasing all those guys too.
I mean you got a little fortunate with who you
get to play in this one too.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
So Steelers and the Bengals coming up on Sunday following
the Steelers losses past Sunday in Cleveland. Final score and
that one was thirteen to ten. For the most complete
selection of Steelers merchandise, from official sideline gear and ethnic
memorabilia to our extensive selection of jerseys and Terrible towels,
visit one of the official Steelers Pro Shop stores located
at Akroscher Stadium, Grove City Premium Outlets, or Tanger Outlets,
(47:58):
or visit a sign on line at shop dot Steelers
dot com for all your Steelers merchandise needs. Directly from
the team for Craig Wolfley, Matt Williamson, I'm Rob King.
Thanks for listening to the point after on Steelers Nature
Radio on one O two point five d ve E
Welcome to 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 Steelers Pro
Shop get it direct from the team at shop dot
Steelers dot com. Alongside Craig Wolfley and Matt Williamson, I'm
Rob King. Thanks very much for being with us on
one O two point five dve N Steelers Nation Radio.
(00:32):
It is time for our look back segment, brought to
you by Brian Patton and the associates. It's all about
the benefits and we are looking back to a most
disappointing thirteen to ten loss in Baltimore yesterday. Craig Wofully,
let's begin with you your thoughts on what you saw
in Cleveland, which evidently was a more partisan crowd than
we're used to. The Browns fans came out in full
(00:55):
throat and big support.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
They were huge, and they were messed, and they were many.
I mean, they were just they were bloodthirsty. That the
overwhelming swelling crescendo of noise that came from there I
have heard, I don't think I've heard it very often,
such as it was in all my years. This is
a trip number thirty four, thirty five into Cleveland for me,
(01:19):
you know. And by the way, I think this is
only the third sunny weekend I've ever seen in that time.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
But just saying, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
But you know, it was for a year and there
was like three funny.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Weeks there, you go, that was it. Ye're there every weekend?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, you're right, man. But the thing about it was,
I think that they caught the Steelers on their heels.
I thought that they they struck the first right hand,
as Big George Forman used to talk about.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
I thought it put the.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Steelers back on their heels a little bit for a
period of time, and then they seemed to right themselves
and work their way out. But initially the first blow
struck was by the Browns, and it was that first
series when they got the sack on Kenny that very
nearly up being a safety.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And I'm glad Wolf and you
guys brought up the environment. I wasn't there, but it
sure seemed like it influenced the game. Not that that
can excuse some communication things, you know, twelve men in
the field, timeouts, things, of that nature. But it did
seem like a hostile environment without question, and the results
are not what we were after, of course, But isn't
(02:24):
the game exactly how we thought it was going to go.
I mean, like, I don't think anyone thought it was
going to be thirty five to thirty with you know,
beautiful passing all over the field. Again, that's not excusing
what the Steelers put out there, especially in the passing game,
but that's what we all kind of thought we were
gonna get.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
First words out of Mike tomlins Mouth exactly the kind
of game we anticipated. You know, you brought up the
boxing reference, and you also brought it up when were
in the locker room talking to Max Starts this morning,
and you know, when I was watching the game, another
boxing reference came to mind for me, and it was
how I felt. You try, I try to, you know,
(02:58):
avoid what you're feeling, although sometimes what you're seeing can
make you feel a certain way from just you know,
maybe I had a bad piece of checken or something,
you know, and it made me feel bad or whatever.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
But you know, when.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
They were getting ready for the second Ali list in
fight and they moved it to Lewiston, Maine, and people
that were at the fight just said.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It just had a bad feel to it, a bad vibe.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
That was because there was gamblers and all kinds of
weird stuff going on and was listening to the other
but it just had a bad feel to it. I
was thinking about that that fight. Another boxing analogy is
I was watching the first half. It just to me
had a bad feel to it. Second play the game,
you're using a timeout. Use another timeout before the first
(03:40):
quarters over use that timeout on defense, by the way,
use another time out. And I know you're working about
personnel grouping, but it just felt out of sink.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
It felt. It felt bad. I couldn't think of any
other way. It didn't.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
It didn't feel like there was a chance to win
the game. To me, just emotionally, I'm like, they're not
going to win this game. And then Jaale and Warren
had the ball run. I'm like, hey, I win this game.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Now. See capture that moment and that emotion that you're feeling.
Now put that into the players. When first of all,
you come out and you have the time out, then
you know, you get backed up, then boom, all of
a sudden, you give up that sack now all of
a sudden, you're sitting on your heels and you're going,
oh my gosh, you know, and you could tell there
was a little bit of you know, guys a little
bit frazzled, a little bit. You know, you could tell
(04:21):
they're running late in the clock getting plays in and
so forth, and for a period of time just looked
like it had them a little bit sitting on their heels.
And that's what I'm talking about. I know, the mindset,
and I know when you come off on that first
couple of plays and it doesn't go real well, like
you know, you mess up and your guy makes a
sack or whatever. You you're kind of like a little
unnerved for a moment because it's like, this is a
(04:44):
bad way to start, and it's only the beginning.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Yeah, and keep it the boxing references. I mean, not
only day Land the first blow, but the first the
whole first round was a series of bad blows. Like
you said, I mean, the crowd, the environment, the results,
both sides of the ball, and then you're down on
the scoreboard and like, uh, you know, what are we
doing here? And it felt like to me, both of
these offenses basically had the same approach. You know, we're
(05:07):
not gonna throw deep. We're gonna kind of you know
conservative here. Uh, Punting's okay. We're gonna protect our quarterback
the best we possibly can in terms of play calling
and style. But the Browns early on through like the
whole kitchen sink at the Steelers, you know, I mean
they're doing different personnel group and they're rotating the right tackle.
I mean it felt like and girounds and reverses and
(05:28):
flee flickers.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
We're just gonna anything they could throw at your wildcat, wildcat.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
You know, I mean, anything you could think of was,
you know, just to kind of get a leg up,
and they did.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
It's interesting too, and I think this is a lot
of fans might be listening right now. And there there
there seemed to be little camps for getting uh we'll
move from uh, we'll move from boxing to war now
your little camps right and and there are camps that
are that are pro Kenny Pickett and anti Matt Canada.
There there are camps that are anti Kenny Pickett. There
are even some people, you know, how come Mike Tomlin as,
(06:00):
I mean, it's to happen, so on so forth. But
I think a lot of fans right now, Matt might
be listening to what you just said and said, well,
that's kind of telling that the Steelers offensive approach. And again,
let's take it out of context of the defense you're
playing against and the environment you're playing in. That people
fans are going to be thinking, okay, well we should
(06:22):
be beyond the point where we are playing our first
round pick quarterback and say, his twentieth game of his career,
the same way the Browns are playing their fifth round
quarterback in the second start of his.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Career hundredercent And that is concerning. There's no doubt about it.
I don't think anyone can condone the way Kenny has
played this season, but especially the last four games or so.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
We lay that stat on us, which I used, by
the way, in the postgame show last night, about what
the Ardgy's shown for in the last four games.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Oh, I don't have a hand.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
On tame point three.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
I believe it is right in that neighborhood. I mean,
it was a struggle to get to one hundred yesterday.
I mean it was a struggle on the last you know,
Hail Mary is play to even get to one hundred.
So the passing game isn't good enough. I mean, no matter,
there's more to blame than just one guy, and it's
not just Kenny, but I do see him turning down throws.
I thought the protection was awful in this game. I
(07:16):
thought there blitz pick up was horrendous.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
And one thing I'm going.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
To fight you on a little bit, not again to
excuse it. I do think that was the best defense
in the league though.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Sure, yeah, I said you had to take out Yeah,
you have to take out the defense, and you have
to take out the environment. And of course the Steelers
would counter with, well, you can't take it out.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I'm just saying what.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Fans are thinking right now, because we're in it. We're
in I think an emotional period for Steelers fans, right,
I mean this, this feels like, well, from we talked
about this a little bit in the locker room, this
feels like more than one loss somehow.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Well.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I can understand having come out of Brownsville there a
couple of times with losses on my own right as
a player, you know, and you hate leaving there feeling
that way. It makes that bus ride so dead gum
long on the way home. I really it does chap
just chap you a little bit. But the fact of
the matter was, Look, they had every opportunity to win it.
(08:13):
This wasn't a blowout, this wasn't anything that was you know,
to me, in my own mind, they slugged it out.
They came up short because in the critical downs, and
again I go to the third downs. Third downs. If
you don't make third downs, you're in trouble unless you
can go seventy five yards like Jalen Warren. All right,
that's nice because then you go first down. Don't worry
about second, third.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Or fourth.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Okay, that's just beautiful stuff. But you don't get that
very often. So in my mind, you know, it's just
a factor of you come out there and you came
up short. You're gonna have to go back and reload.
But let me say this, there are still promising signs
that are coming along. I mean, I could sit here,
and I know people want to sit there and go, oh,
you're being you know, you're just kind of like trying
(08:57):
to pull the daisies up there and you know, be
happy about the no. But I see things that are
happening that I take at Landon Roberts. What a great
game he had. What a great game when you're down
some people a pair a pair in the inside there,
and what a great game. I could go on and
name some other stuff, but the fact is they came
up short. It was a dog on tough fight.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
It was.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It was a brutal If you heard that noise level,
I'm telling you what, when you're down on that field
and you got a hair trigger like Miles Garrett sitting
outside you, you know, maybe a player removed that that
will lead to some very close calls when you go
to a silent count.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And the reason I said, but I said, Matt about
this feeling like more than one loss, Yes, because when
you go six and three and you're the first team
in NFL history to have a winning record, when you're
out gained in all nine games, when the eye test
is telling you we're not moving the ball enough, we're
winning by a formula that has the slenderest of margins,
(09:56):
and we've won nine in a row like that. But evidently, eventually,
even with Mike Tomlins success in games like that over
the course of his career, that's gonna you know, it
might you know, even out a little bit. Even if
it doesn't even out all the way. Sure, if it
even evens out a little bit, well, that just tells
you there's some losses coming. And so you know, when
you lose a game like this, I think for the
(10:17):
people that saw the team go six and three but
didn't buy in because of the way they were winning,
and because of the lopsided losses they had in two
of their three losses, and even Jacksonville was one sided
statistically more than it was in the scoreboard, I think
people will look at this and say, aha, this loss
is the manifestation of my fears. And so that's why
(10:39):
you almost take almost appropriate some of those wins and
make them feel like losses even.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Though it's only one loss. And the win and lost column.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Yeah, it's such a week the week league, you know.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
I mean that, Yes, we all overreact on Monday's good, bad, ugly,
no matter what. And I do think what you said
was really well said in that a lot of people
are looking at this team going it's not sustainable. You know,
six to zero and one score games really wasn't sustainable.
You're bound to come back to earth in a tight one,
for sure. I mean, that's why they're one score games
because they're evenly you know, evenly matched teams from much
(11:13):
of the game. But I do think there's more overreaction
than there should be today. I mean, isn't this the
game we expected to happen. I picked a sixteen thirteen win.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
By the Steelers.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
I thought there'd be a lot of field goals, a
lot of struggles to get first downs, things of that nature,
which is exactly what it was. I do think the
better team won, but I don't think all of a sudden, Ah,
I told you so this team stinks, is the right answer.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, Well, Charlie Batch picked thirteen to ten. We also
picked the stage win, so we got to score right,
and that is a good point. But again, it's emotional Monday.
This is the this is the way things are going
to be. This is the reaction there's going to be
among fans when you lose a game like this, you know,
to a backup quarterback making a second start, because you
(11:58):
know what Sealers fans are doing. Let's face it, some
of the players probably are too. You're like, okay, let
me get that number two pencil out. Okay, we're six
and three. Well, here's a backup quarterback that's seven and three.
There's a backup quarterback that's.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Eight and three.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Now we have the Patriots and we have the Cardinals,
and there's ten wins and holy Mackley, yeah the Colts
and look at us.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Go well, you still got to play the game on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Right, Can I say this? You know what the players
are thinking. I got twenty four hours to get over
this thing. Then I got to and load and get
ready for the next one. That's what it is, right,
you know, because you've got no alternative. There's nowhere to run,
there's nowhere to hide, and there's nobody coming in from
the east on a white horse that's going to help you.
All Right, it's all about you reload. You gotta get
it done when you identify the factors that are keeping
(12:44):
you from putting up more points. And I'm sorry, I'm
not one of those guys about style points and winning ugly. Listen, man,
I know what winning ugly is. I married my beautiful
bride of thirty years thirty years ago. Convince Iterr and
marry me. That's winning ugly, buddy. Okay. You know, so
when you talk about style points and forget about it
if you get one more point. I know you want
(13:05):
to talk about It's not sustainable. Listen, nothing's always sustainable,
you know. But you just enter into the game and
you fight for each and every win. It's like Cam
Hayward said when he uttered the immortal words, the heck
with I'll like a paraphraser, Yeah, you know, the heck
with it. I know how hard we work, you know
(13:26):
what I mean. And that's what it is. It's the
men in the locker room. It's how hard they're laying
it out there. They let it out there hard. This
past weekend. That was full on, as much the gas
as they could put in there, and it was it
came up.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
A little short. But that's that's what the NFL is.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Well.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
And as I've said before, I'd rather win ugly than
lose pretty absolutely. Of course, unless I'm on the golf course.
I want to look good out here. Yeah, I want Hey,
you look good out there. No, I know I'm kidding you.
You know you want to win no matter what it is.
But I'm the golf course, uh, on the NFL when
you're when you're playing, you know, I used to say,
(14:04):
I I always equated that you know, I played a
lot of pickup basketball over the years. And you get
into the gym and you know the guys, and you
choose up teams and you look around and you say,
you don't say to yourself, boy, I'm gonna score a
lot of points, cause you say, how can our team win?
What do we need to do to win?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Like, winning is ultimately what you do, and as a player,
you have to have that mentality. Now we have a
former player, we have a scout in Matt, and we
have whatever the hecku I am in the room, and
and so we're trying to, you know, look at both
sides of it. And I love the players perspective. I
think you have to have that perspective. I don't care
how you win, you win, but you also, you know,
(14:41):
you are looking for signs that, Hey, and we were
we were all hoping that we're going to see signs
that at this time of the year it was going
to be getting better and offensively. It's hard to make
that case.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
It is well passing game running game. The passing game
is very, very, very problematic. There's just no way around that.
The running game to me is I don't say fixed,
I don't think anything in this sport or this this
league ever gets fixed. Fixed for now and again it's
week to week. But I love the way they run
the ball, and boyd you know Wolf mentioned Roberts. I
mean that was a great right spot. But nothing brighter
(15:17):
than Jalen Warren out there. I mean Jalen Warren's quickly
turning into a star. I mean not just oh, that's
a nice story for an undrafted free agent. He's turned
into a star. So the running game, to me, is
in a fine spot. The passing game needs to be
evaluated at all levels without question. I mean, Kenny's under
pressure way too much. I didn't see many adjustments in
terms of the blitzes and stuff. You saw a lot
(15:38):
of the same blitzes getting home. Frankly, the Browns are
just better upfront than the Steelers, and they're better than
just about any offensive line up front. Kenny's turning down
too many throws. He's not accurate enough. There were certainly
some communication errors between him and receivers where I'm not
on the same page, I'm putting that in quotes. You know,
one guy runs one way and the ball goes the other,
and that makes him look terrible, but it's not always him.
(16:00):
I don't understand why Friarmouth isn't being used more one
throw between the numbers. I mean, you can't win that
way going forward. So there's a lot of critique with
the passing game. But yeah, it should be better. But
how are you gonna get it better? Like Wolfe said,
go to work tomorrow, get twenty four hours to relax,
go to work and see if you can make it
(16:20):
better against the Bengals.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
But there are problems.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Well, that is the elephant in the room. There's a
lot of meat in the bone of that elephant, and
we're gonna attack that. Three carnivores and justin zero percent
body fat over here, We're all gonna we're gonna attack that.
We're gonna be looking at that offensive passing game. What
comes up next when we continue on the Point After
on Steelers Nation Radio and one O two point five DV.
(16:53):
This is the Point After presented by Parks Casino. Is
today your Lucky Day bet Parks by Brian Patton is
So it's all about the benefits and by this Jeerler's
Pro Shop Get it direct from the team at shop
dot Steelers dot com. Thanks for being with us for
the point after alongside Craig Wolfly and Matt Williamson, I'm
rob king. Okay, so uh the passing game, we'll get
(17:18):
to the good part for let's get let's just let's
just dive right in because I'm gonna set you up
this way. Wolf The team goes seven and two after
the break. Last year, they're running the football, They're not
really making too many plays down the field, They're not
turning it over. What are all the media types over
in the side of the room here, I'm looking across
the table at Craig Wolfley sitting next to Matt Williamson.
(17:39):
We're all saying, how can this be improved upon? This
is not sustainable. This is not going to be good
enough to challenge the top teams in the league. Therefore,
we need to press the ball down in the middle
of the field. We need to or attack the middle
of the field, pressed the ball down the field because
it's Matt pointed out, what fewest fewest are among the
fewest big plays in the in the in the passing
game last year in the league by the Steelers.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Or yeah, there explosives were really poor.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, worst are among the worst in the league, right,
So we need more of that. So they work on
it in Latrobe. They work on it in the preseason.
We see it in the preseason. Five drives, five touchdowns.
It's going in the right direction. You win the toss
against the forty nine ers, you're so confident it's going
(18:22):
in the right direction. You say, well, we're gonna take
the ball right and then now we're here and all
that's just gone in a puff of smoke.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
It's just gone.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
All that attack the middle of the field, attack down
the field, make big plays. We saw a couple of
big plays early in the season. It's gone. Where did
it go?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Well, I wouldn't say everything's gone. You still get explosives.
I mean, just Jalen Warren all.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Talking about in the passing game. I want to get
back to Jailen Warren and I do. I do, but
I just want to.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
I can't separate from OK when you say explosives, it's
running passing. What have you returns? And you know whatever?
To me and my mind, that's you know, that's all
about the explosives. I understand you want to If you
regulated only to the passing game, that's a problem. That's
an issue. You're gonna have to attempt it. But one
of the issues has been you've not had the big
three that would be in Deontay Johnson and Pickens and
(19:16):
friar Mouth.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
All together on the field until this week.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yes, until this week. And if you thought it was
going to be uh uh, you know, Pat step on
there and all of a sudden, this passing game is
going to be You're You're crazy. It doesn't work that way.
You got to get back into it. I mean I
watched Pat. Pat took a screen pass, you know. One
of the first things he did he stumbled, you know,
he had fresh legs, is excited. I got the ball,
(19:39):
I'm gonna turn the north and south and then you
trip over the grass monster a little bit, you know,
and that sort of thing. It takes a little time
get your sea legs back. That's why you know you
can't if you're boxing, you gotta get in the ring
and spa. You got to knock off the ring rust
and then you go out and you gotta have fight
and go for real. But it's all part of getting
back to and ramping up to speed a game speed.
So the fact is I think that it's going to
(20:02):
take continued work. But where else are they going to go?
I mean, you got to you gotta hang with this
and the other thing that that will help so much.
We saw the screen game and how important that is
to the Steelers. That screen game can be huge. There
were on a couple occasions there was just one block
away from real big damage done to the Browns.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
You know there are there is that caveat that's.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Kind of floating in the corner of my mind, and
you brought it up, and I'm glad you did. You
know the Steelers, we know there's not a ton of
depth at the receiving positions tight end and wide receiver.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
There's not.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
So part of me wants to think that maybe the
reasons they weren't attacking the field in a different way.
You lose Deontay Johnson midway through that game against the
forty nine Ers, and since that time, from that time
where he got injured until this time, you're now relying
on a second year receiver, and then Friarmuth gets hurt.
(21:01):
Now you're relying on a tight end who you love.
What he can do, What Darnel Washington can do down
the line. He's a guy that you figure is a
guy who can block at the NFL level, is going
to learn the intricacies of receiving two three years from now,
he's going to give you a tremendous maybe even next
year soon, I'm going to give you a tremendous tandement
(21:21):
tight end, but not quite ready. So does that excuse
a little bit? And I say excuse sounds like excuses,
But does that explain, perhaps Matt a little bit, the
reticence to do what they were doing when everybody was
healthy in the preseason and then okay, you got everybody
back great, as you said, we'll knock off some game
rust and let's try this against somebody other than the
(21:45):
best defense in the league at their place, in front
of a raucous crowd.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
And I'm not going to excuse anything, but I do
want to explain some things. First of all, yesterday's a
perfect example. They've faced the most difficult slated defenses of
any offense in the league this year, and I think
the one they played yesterday is number one in the
whole league.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Plus the environment.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Okay, Now, I was on the radio at training camp
every practice for three hours a day. You know, and
it's hard to fill three hours a day. But we
watched every practice. We talked so much about in breaking
routes and creating explosives. To Wolfe's point, I think they've
created explosives throughout the twenty twenty three season run pass however,
(22:26):
much better than last year. And watching those practices and
being on the air so many more in breaking routes
from Pickin's certainly Robinson and Washington red zone stuff that
they were working on the right things, and then going
into the Niner game, I said over and over and over, Okay,
I think this offense, and it showed in the preseason,
(22:47):
they're gonna have a lot more in breaking routes. They're
gonna have more explosive concepts. But it's not gonna happen
against the Niner, folks, because Fred Warner's out there and
don't don't hold the Niner.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Games so hard to attack in the middle of the field.
It's so hard to attack.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
And this this Rounds team is probably right there with
the Niners in terms of attacking the middle of the field.
And I'm just explaining some things that I think is
in their head because all they care about is winning
the game.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Not.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
We need to get better on the statute. We need
Matt's stats to look better. You know, we don't care
one bit or your fantasy team. They don't care about
any of that's right, or even what's Kenny gonna do
or Darnel Washington three years from now?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
How can we win this game?
Speaker 5 (23:21):
How can we win this game? You have to get
in their head. And like the Titan game, to me,
everything was sideways. But I really believe Kenny's ribs were
a massive problem and they did not want him getting
hit time and time again and holding the football, So
the ball came out ridiculously quick into the flats. Okay,
and you'll won, you know. And I mentioned Robinson, I
(23:42):
mentioned Washington. I like both those players, but I think
right now, at the different stages of their career, both
of them, as a tight end and wide receiver respectively,
are more of an asset in the run game than
the passing game. But you're winning, so keep doing it,
you know what I mean. Like, I don't really fault
the approach. I fault the execution in this game, and
(24:04):
the opponent had a lot to do with it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Both what we've been saying since Game one, though, I'm sorry.
Most eighty percent of it is execution eighty percent. You know,
I understand you want, you know, offensive coordinators, defensive coordinators,
what have you. Coaches make decisions, they do, you know, personnel,
all those things. But at the same time, it always
(24:26):
comes down to the guys across the white line. When
you walk out there and they call a play in
the huddle, which again this is I know, I'm an
old guy. I'm I'm as old as dirt, all right,
maybe one day older than water, two days older than dirt.
But the fact is, you know, you go out there
and they call a play in the huddle, your identity
for the moment is that play. That's what it wants. Job.
(24:49):
You got one job, that's you micro manage whatever is
going on in your life right there by one and
it's that one play. And you got one eleventh of
that play and whatever. The result of your one eleventh
says everything about you. The whole group of eleven's coming together,
That's what it says about your unit. You know, whether
(25:10):
it's successful or not. If everybody does their unit there,
they're one eleventh get into fractions, I get lost. But
you know, then you've got you've got an opportunity to
have success. And that's to me, that's the quintessential way
that an offense and defense is built from the ground up.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
By the way, I talked a lot about basketball and
just failed to execute a two foot toss into the garbage.
I went off rail and it just I went backboard
and it just it donked and it Yeah, there's too
much paper now I'm blaming it on the.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Best part is if you ever played you ever played
basketball with a wrestler, their labs can bounce out the
half court.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
No, yeah, no, fun, they don't.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah they If somebody ever if I was ever playing
pick up and someone's like I had a wrestling background,
I'm like, oh no, man, because it just lunge it
you really quickly and like butt their head.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Into your midsection and Jesus super quick and they're lowing the.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Fun to fight for rebounds. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
If whatever you're doing, it doesn't hurt them for sure.
So okay, so let's uh, let's move off.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
That because I think you, guys, unless there's anything else
you want to add about the lack of passing game,
if we covered it.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
Here, one thing I would throw out though, that to
defend coaches is there's nothing coaches hate more than we
think we're getting covered two I call a cover two beater.
It's there and they don't throw it. And that's something
we'll never know, but I do think there's a lot
of that going on the last couple of games and season,
(26:37):
where if a guy's open, the ball has to come
out for sure, if you miss the throw because Miles
Garrett's crashing India, I can understand that. But when the
when we spend one hundred hours as a coaching staff
for this moment, cover two, cover two beater, I'm just
using that example and you don't throw it. That's a
problem and that's happening time and time again. That needs
to be addressed.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
And to reiterate, we don't know, and we don't know.
I mean, you know, look, Mike Tomlins very comfortable playing
close games. He's got a great record in close games.
We've seen the team have success using the formula of
running the football, throwing it a little bit, not turning
it over, you know. So is that what he wants
is is Matt Canada calling the right plays? Does he
(27:19):
have the right schemes? Just Kenny pickt not perform, you know.
And one thing I will say is I don't know
how the coaches feel about this either. Nobody, no coach
has thrown Kenny under the buss. And for that, I mean,
you'll see some comments around the league where coaches will
throw players under the bus. I mean, you have to
be you want to be honest, but I don't. I'm
(27:41):
a big fan, not a big fan, not a big
fan of coaches throwing team players in, not a fan
of that.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I said that this this morning. It's a dangerous time
right now in that locker room. You've got to keep
it in the locker room, right. And then again in
the Three Rivers locker room, on every wall there was
a science said, which you see here, what you say here,
what you do here, stays here when you leave here.
And I believe in that totally because the sanctity of
the locker room, of keeping your business inside should be
(28:08):
between the players and the coaches. And that's it, and
that's how you form a foundation to move forward. When
nobody's sitting there trying to look to point fingers but saying, Okay,
we have a problem. We're not winning, you know, we're
not winning enough. However, well, let's fix it. How do
you fix it? Get on a practice field and you
start winning your one eleventh.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
So I did want to point out the rather obvious,
and you know, not a popular thing to say in Pittsburgh, but.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Man is Miles scart good.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I mean, holy back, I mean, you know, right from
the opening his his fingerprints were all over that game,
right from the very opening play in which I thought
it was a safety. I'm surprised didn't challenge the sack
of Kenny Pickett. Listen, man, this guy we all have
a not warm place in our bellies for him because
(28:59):
of you know, him ripping off you know, Mason Rudolph's
helmet and try to hit him over the head with it.
He's never going to be a fan favorite in Pittsburgh.
But guy can play football.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
There's no question he can play football. I mean you
knew that going in. And yet I still say, I
take take DJ Watt any date.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Oh yeah, No, I'm not trying. I'm not. I'm not
comparing him. I'm just saying I am I am.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Because I'm saying I'll go I'll take Teach go in
there no doubt about it. But it's not to put
down Miles Garrett.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
He is.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
He is a terrific talent.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Okay, so so I'll say I was reading.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I don't know if it was the athletic or I
don't want to besmirch the operation that wasn't writing it.
But they're talking about mid season awards. You're like, Okay, well,
the defensive player that year definitely comes down to either
Miles Garrett or Micah Parsons. Yeah, what how does t J.
Watt not even get it? I mean, first of all,
I think he should be leading the conversation, That's what
I think. But secondly, to not even be in it,
(29:54):
to just dismiss him as he's not into it.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
That's it's ludic, you that's the right word.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
However, I do think it's interesting because these teams are rivals.
It's a bus ride. They both were drafted the same year.
They're both elite edge players for sure, and frankly, in
head to head competition, TJ's been the better player than
Garrett when the Browns played the Steelers. I do think
there's a misconception in this town that Ah, that guy's overrated.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
He's not that great.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
I know, he's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, he is, unbelievable, and there were some positives coming
out of the game and for the Steels, and we
can talk a little bit more. I want to get
more into Jaalen Warren. But I thought, once again, Joey
Porter Junior, I just love the way they're playing him.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
I love what he does.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
I thought he got a very bad, you know, defensive
holding an interference call. I thought that was I thought
that was a bad call. And I think Cooper he
kind of had a couple veteran things on him. With
the very first completion of the game, he kind of
got his left hand up on Porter's left shoulder pad
and kind of pulled off from just to create a
little bit of room kind of a listen that that
great move by Cooper. But I think Joey Porter Junior
(31:02):
has stood up extremely well in coverage.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
That's just my I.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Mean, he's becoming one of those guys where you're like,
hey man, good luck.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
You know, he's getting the most difficult task.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
He's getting the most difficult tasks. I think he's been
super impressive.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
One hundred agree. And did Cooper get the better of
him a fair amount? Absolutely? I mean, but that happens
in this league. I mean being a corner.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
So he's getting win three billion dollars.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
It was a fifth pick in the draft a couple
of you know, ten, eight years ago, and he's been
these a million yards in the league.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
He's not the best receiver in the league, but he's.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
Not far off, right, you know, a great player that's
a focal point of their offense. And I think Porter
is learning on the job as well as any rookie
could be expected to.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I think he's doing terrific. Yeah, and he's just got
to got a grit. You got to bite your teeth
a little and you know, bite down your teeth a
little bit. Remember the calls a lot of times go
against the rookies when you get two, three, four, and
you start building up a reputation, and the referees are
kind of like, oh, that's okay, that's okay, that's so
and so. Right, you know, it tends to go a
little bit different.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
That's so and so. Yeah, you know that's so and so.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Real quick to ref note, I don't think this is
a poorly ref game.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Oh please, wait a minute, but I'm going to be
talking about high Smith.
Speaker 5 (32:17):
I was just saying at the end of the day,
the Browns only committed one one penalty for ten yards.
I found that a little fishy to me. I'm just saying,
it's not the only reason.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Okay, if we're going.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
To gripe here, let's ripe Alex Highsmith. I can't believe
he got called for that.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Oh, I thought that's horrible.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
That was unbelievable that you could call that. I mean you,
I know you go by the strict sense of the rule. Well,
a face mask hit, a face mask or something. What
could you ask more of a defensive lineman jumping in
the air, trying to get him to pull the ball down,
sacking the quarterback, hitting him while he's throwing, and then
being able to pull away and land on the ground
(32:57):
next to the quarterback. What more could you possible we
want from a guy? To me, that was just so
you want to talk about Ludacris. That was the epitome
of Ludacros.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Steelers lose by the final score of thirteen to ten.
With the loss, the Browns improved the seven and three
the Steelers drop to six and four. Much more on
this game, and maybe a little sneak peek forward to
the Bengals when we continue on the Point After on
Steelers Nation Radio on one on two point five DVE.
(33:32):
This is the Point After presented by Parks Casino. Is
today your Lucky Day bet Parks by Brian Patton and associates.
It's all about the benefits and by the students pro
shop get it direct from the team at shop dot
Steelers dot com. Okay, so one of my notes was
JPJ is good. We've handled that right. He's so, let
me ask, let me throw one more young defender out there,
(33:55):
Keanu Benton. And you know, there are plays in which
you'll see a flash of movement, like when Ryan Shazier
was linebacking for the Steelers and there was like the
guy's running looks like a hole and then there's like
a flashing movement and the guy goes down. You're like, well,
that had to be Shazier. You didn't even have to
see who it was, right, he just knew who it was.
On the Steelers defensive line. That guy to me is
(34:16):
Cam Hayward. Like flashing move there's Cam Hayward and the
guy goes down. He's running along. Oh wait a minute,
now he's down.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
What happened? Cam? Happened? You know?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Keanu Benton had a tackle. I was watching the game,
watching the first half of my son, and it was
one of those corner of your eye kind of things.
He's like, he was that cam and I was like, no,
I think that was Benton. I mean he's he can
That's a big man who can move. That one play
really caught my eye. But he keeps catching my eye.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
No question about it. And I love his low pad level.
I love his ability to use his hands at such
a young age. I mean when he clubs, he clubs.
People move, Thick bodies move, and he's one of these
guys that can hold a point. He gets down there,
and I mean he looks like he enjoys the violence
the trenches, you know. And if you don't love that
sort of stuff, it's a bad place to be. But
(35:05):
if you do love that sort of thing, there is
no place better than to play that nose tackle position
because he's in the thick of it, with big bodies
all the way around, thick about it. He was up
against Posik, Teller and Botonio. That's as good a threesome
in the league on the inside there, and he more
than held his own. You look at these guys again,
Landon Roberts, you want to talk about a downhill, bang
(35:28):
this guy here. I can't even say how how impressed
I was with some of his work.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
On Sunday, Wolf and I were interviewing Vince Williams, a
wonderful guy. Oh great guy, saw spoken and I was
asking how he got into off the field. Yeah, how
he got into football? He said, basically it was the
one place where he was allowed to hit people and
not get in trouble.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Here.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yeah, so I can hit little Johnny as hard as one.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
They're like, not only that, We'll clap you on the
back for you, sign me up, might give me.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
A scholarship for it and pay you well.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, the Alumni week we were talking to the Seation radio.
But I'm sorry your thoughts on on Keanu Benton.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
One hundred percent of everything that Wolf just said, a
couple of things I want to throw out. In addition
to when you watched his Wisconsin tape, sometimes he would
get his pads high and that's when he would get neutralized.
When and you see it less and less and less
at the pro level, I mean there would be one
out of three snaps. You're like, he came out of stance,
kind of high and he's just hand fighting, you know,
he's driving off the ball. And then the other thing
(36:28):
which you were talking about was it's almost like to it,
you know, like to it sometimes.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Yes, absolutely, like was that Camerton? Yeah, exactly right, Bro,
he was one of those guys for sure. I loved
Stefan no doubt, and like to it.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
You couldn't have a better mentor of running to the
football practice habits than Hayward. I mean, it works out
really well for the young man.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
So so that was impressive and then you know, just
touched on it earlier, but got to go to it again.
I mean, Jalen Warren, if you can trust my math,
last three games, thirty five carries three one hundred and
eighteen yards. That's nine point one yard to carry. I mean,
he is just impressive.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
He's He's produced three hundred and sixty eight total yards
in the last three games. Three sixty eight is a
part time garries. Last week he's all right, I mean
that's it's ridiculous. And eight point six yards per touch
in the last three games. I mean one of them
came on a super long one, so forty three touches.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
So he's got the ability to break a super long
one exactly.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
You know, he does it consistently.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
He's near the top of the league in explosive runs.
I mean, not to mention people don't look him in
this light. He's great in protection as it and loves it.
And I know I'm a nerd about this stuff, but
his receiving metrics, like his underlying metrics like yards per
route run, they're like first or second in the league.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
You know, it's like him and Christian McCaffrey. I mean,
he's a phenomenal player.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
I don't have to Well, it's it's interesting. I was
listening to your podcast and you're talking about him beginning
to emerge with some of these numbers as not just
a good story, not just a good player, right right, right,
This is becoming more than that. This guy's like becoming
a wet like a legitimate, maybe star level player right
in front of us.
Speaker 5 (38:12):
I'm starting to believe that I used to think, boy,
he's a really good compliment to nausey, and this has
nothing to do with nausey.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
I't me just say, if you isolate.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
Warren what he brings to the game, not just once
in a while, but like on every snap or a
route run perspective, I think he might be a top
ten running back in the league right now.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
There's no question.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Yeah he's.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
I mean he's think about all the tackles he ghosts
people on, all the arm tackles he runs through, all
the times that he puts the shoulder down, not the helmet,
puts the shoulder down and runs behind those pads. I mean,
this guy is five to eight, two hundred and fifteen pounds.
He's mostly thighs and thigh boards, you know, and when
(38:53):
he gets behind those pads, he is a tough guy
to tackle. And you gotta love the fact it's hard
to find it behind those big hogs.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
He's just so combative, Like we could we said we
were talking about boxing a little bit, Like you get
the feeling like if he could stop in a cloak,
it's gonna be it's gonna be tackled. If he could
drop the football, like fight the guy and then pick
the football back up, he would do it.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
I mean, he's out there and he got that one him.
Was it it was? Uh? Was it Newsome or deel
Ward maybe?
Speaker 2 (39:19):
But the one where he broke to his left and
ended up going across the field towards the out of
bounds and it's a it's a battle of stiff arms
between him and whoever is trying to bring him down,
and they're like pumping each other with you know, left
and right arms, and it was it was terrific. It
was a great battle. But I love the way the
kid battles and I think he's he might have learned
a lot of that from Nagy, you know, because not again,
(39:40):
you know, is a is a battler. But right now,
Jalen Warren has got a hot hand, and I think
he's got to see more of the pigskin.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
I mean, everyone has the conversation he's better than Nausey
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
I don't even care about that. I have nothing.
Speaker 5 (39:53):
I don't care about what nause he's doing. I just
know that that guy needs the ball a lot.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
You know, he's really.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Good, right and and he had twelve touches yesterday. You
would think that would hopefully continue to go up because
it has been small doses, will it be more? And again,
you know, there was a couple of things and we
look at this game again and it feels like an
extension of things that people are prejudiced about that happened
earlier in the season. You know, Matt Canada came out
(40:21):
in the last to his designs in the last two
weeks prior to this one and score touchdowns right touchdown, touchdown,
opening drive and did some things that I really liked.
I thought that, you know, trying to get you know,
picking some early touches at times, trying to get Deontay
some really Now I want to see, can can you
get into a flow in a rhythm and I don't
(40:44):
care to your point, Wolf if it's over the middle,
under the middle, to the side. Can you find a
way early in the game without sacrificing the run game
to get Pickens and Friar Muth and Deonte a touch
somewhere somehow, some way?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
What game was that?
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Well they got they ran pickings on a reverse. You know,
they're trying to do different ways to get these guys
involved and keep them involved. Can you do that schematically?
Now you're talking about an offensive line, because that's such
a huge part of it, obviously the running game. Can
you do that and still keep that run flow going
as an offensive lineman sacrifice the play to get a
get pickings to touch, Deontay a touch, firemouth to touch.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I don't think there's any question you can, you know.
And it starts with play action, and play action starts
with running the ball. Well, you know, once you start
cracking that thing and and guys are getting lit up
on the offensive line. I'm the defensive line. By the
offensive line coming off the ball and rolling them back,
you know, you make them have to go through their
run reads. And that's that's what you want. Now, you
(41:47):
just suck them in with that play action. There was
nothing better than play action. I as a guard, I
loved it because you're getting that hunch down stance. You
kind of start, you know, flexing your arms and make
it look like you're gonna tee off right away, you know,
and you get those guys going, oh, here we go,
we're gonna And I've even had conversations, not me and
my you know my part, but Matt Millen, you know,
(42:08):
he go, oh for you, it looks like you're coming off.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
On an ice little bog, you know, and you give
him that look.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Then boy, you come off pow and then you just
pull up and then you throw it over the top
of them and it's a beautiful thing. And I think
that is something you can do. And the screen games, again,
the screen games are huge. There was a couple like
the first screen where Kenny just didn't get it over
the guy who blitzed up the middle. Jalen didn't check
the guy. I don't know whether he's supposed to or not,
(42:36):
but he slid out and the guy got a hand
up and batted the ball away. But that thing was
set up for a big play. And there was another screen.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
That would have gone through another actor. So it's like
the envelope. Please.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
The offensive lineman for Best Actor, Craig Wolfley.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Chue could always say, be an actor, be an actor,
make him think you're gonna you know, make him think
it's a pass. You know, you set up and everybody
you know, da da da, And then then he say,
hopefully just do what you do, so.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
You know, I just go ahead and get beat. I guess, oh,
now that wasn't gonna happen. Come on now, So I guess, Matt,
when I look at this, and again, extenuating circumstances, not excuses. Right,
you have your full you have your full competent players.
You're going into the road again, another hostile environment in
Cincinnati this coming week. Not the same caliber of defense. No,
(43:26):
I do love their two middle linebackers. I think Wilson
and Pratt. Although Wilson now is getting in a lot
of trouble for that hip drop tackle.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
But he and.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Prattle not illegal yet. He and Crack can really run
and really hit. They might make the middle of the
field more difficult to attack.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
I don't know schematically we're or statistically with the with
the Bengals rank. But if you think, okay, well, part
of the problem may have been that we didn't have
all these guys together. Now we have them all together.
This is the unit we were working on all these
things with in La Trobe and in the preseason, and
we haven't had him since, you know, midway through that
(44:00):
forty nine Ers game, when Deontay Johnson went down with
an injury. Now we're not facing the top defense in
the league. Could this be maybe the beginning of what
we were expecting to see X amount of you know,
weeks ago, ten weeks ago or whatever, and there were
just too many detours on the highway to get to
this point.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
Possibly.
Speaker 5 (44:19):
I mean, I think yesterday was the highest hurdle to
get over without question. And I'm not fighting you, but
it's November, I mean thirty one. Other offenses don't have
all their guys either.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
No, no, no, no, no no. I totally agree with you, Mat.
I'm biing Devil's advocate a little bit here.
Speaker 5 (44:36):
Yeah, I mean so. And they are pretty healthy right now.
So health isn't an excuse at this point by any stretch.
But we know injuries are all rampant across the league.
The homework I've done on the Bengals, which is stage
three of ten or whatever is, they allow a lot
of explosives. Their linebackers are very good. I do know
their defensive coordinator, a Marumo, whose name I never pronounced well,
(44:58):
is a very very good schemer. They're very physical defensive front.
I mean, their ends are bigger than most ends.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
They they're very Peverard and Henderson yeah, good players for they've.
Speaker 5 (45:08):
Both been banged up, but they have two new safeties.
They've allowed a lot of explosives this year, and the
offense hasn't helped them a lot. They've been on the
field quite a bit too, So I think this Bengals
defense can be had is an easier challenge than yesterday
for sure.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Right, and maybe you can get back to well what
you were doing before, which is again, even if we're
not going to see and I don't think we're going
to see three hundred.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Yards passing, right what you said four? And oh when
they get two?
Speaker 1 (45:34):
When Ken he has two hundred yards passing, So they
may get they may get to that level. But can
you get back to you know, maybe winning the time
of possession battle And again a lot of that has
to do with running the football, but you know, give
your defense a break, play that complimentary football again, which
you did for a couple of weeks, and again, tough
challenge against the Browns, but you didn't get it done either.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
No, you didn't get it done. And you realize that
and recognize and now you've got to go about the
the process of rebuilding that and going forward with it. Look,
it's of course it can happen. It can happen anytime.
I mean, this is the thing that players think about.
They don't think about well, you know, maybe in two
or three weeks, but no, I mean, once you've done
(46:15):
it before, you can do it again. And I really
think that the players are taking an attitude where they
understand where they're at. They understand they got this defense
is doing a great job. The offense they got to
come along and do some things to help them out
a little bit. But again, once they get that footing back,
that that run game going, Man, there's so many good
things that occur when you run the ball and consistently
(46:38):
run the ball and physical punishment dished out. It's great.
And I'll tell you what if if there's ever more
of an enticement to win a game of seeing the
escaloser in action, you know at that stadium, it's a
mighty wonderful thing to see.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
Yeah, the background and it just mac quickly. This just
looms as you know, you've dropped the six and four.
Now the Bengals are five and five. It just feels
like the loser of this game is going to be
and you just went from the fifth seed to the
seventh seed the Steelers. The Bengals are fighting for their
playoff lives right This is a huge game for them.
(47:15):
But the Steelers, man, you know, if you lose now
you're you're both six and five.
Speaker 5 (47:19):
Absolutely, it's a very pivotal game, especially the division you're in.
The conference, you're in tiebreakers, all those type of things.
You can't keep dropping division games, especially against backup quarterbacks.
I mean this isn't Burrow and chasing all those guys too.
I mean you got a little fortunate with who you
get to play in this one too.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
So Steelers and the Bengals coming up on Sunday following
the Steelers losses past Sunday in Cleveland. Final score and
that one was thirteen to ten. For the most complete
selection of Steelers merchandise, from official sideline gear and ethnic
memorabilia to our extensive selection of jerseys and Terrible towels,
visit one of the official Steelers Pro Shop stores located
at Akroscher Stadium, Grove City Premium Outlets, or Tanger Outlets,
(47:58):
or visit a sign on line at shop dot Steelers
dot com for all your Steelers merchandise needs. Directly from
the team for Craig Wolfley, Matt Williamson, I'm Rob King.
Thanks for listening to the point after on Steelers Nature
Radio on one O two point five d ve E
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