May 19, 2023 • 25 mins
Dale and Matt discuss Mitch Trubisky receiving an extension from the Steelers
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Lisk is The Drive with Dale Lolly and Matt Williamson
on your twenty four to seven home of the Black
and Gold SNR Steelers Nation Radio. Welcome to the Drive.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Dale Lolly, he is Matt Williamson and Matt Well.
A little bit of news. We talked a lot of
quarterbacks on Wednesday show, and lo and behold, the Steelers
not only signed Mason Rudolph to a one year contract,
they give Mitch Trubisky essentially a new deal. He's now
(00:36):
signed through the twenty twenty five season as the Steelers
backup quarterback, gets a two year extension on his current deal,
which lowers the cap number for this year, but also
make sure that they have the quarterback room pretty much
in place now for the next few years. And again,
(00:58):
much like when we talked about Mason Rudolph, there's no downside.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
With this, right and I find it amazing, Like I
keep thinking, boy, pretty soon we're not gonna have any
to talk about, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It's gonna be quiet.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
And then you know, there's releases, there's signings, there's additions.
Now there's a little more cap space, there's more things
gonna come because of this. Who knows, you know, I mean, like,
but what it tells me is they like these three.
You know, they enjoyed working with them last year. They
see progress. I commented this on another outlet and said,
(01:31):
I think it's not crazy to say that all three
of these quarterbacks best football still might be ahead of them,
you know. I mean, I don't think any of their
book is written yet. And you and I went through
that exercise wednesday. I guess it was just talking about
quarterback depth. And they're as good as anyone in the
league right now in that department, and that's really important
(01:51):
in today's NFL.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the quarterback room,
not only do they have depth.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
They've got upside potential.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah uh. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So they've got the young guy in place, and it
just so happens that their young guy is their starter,
right right right, Unlike some other teams where they okay,
they got the starter in place and they draft of
one with some upside. They know who their starter is,
and the starter is the guy who is the young
guy with upside. They've also got experience on the bench.
(02:21):
Yeah yeah, and you know, if something were to happen
to picket, yeah, you know, if Picket were to falter
or Picket were to get hurt, They've got guys waiting
in the wings who who, as Mike Tomlin likes, they're
been there, done that kind of guys.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
It's a great situation.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, And in addition to everything you just said, which
was spot on, it's very financially feasible, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
And that's the other part of this, Matt.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So if you look at this two year extension through
the twenty twenty five season, that gives them Mitch Trubisky
and a reasonable price until they have to start paying Picket.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yeah, right, all right, that's not an accident, right, They
did this.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
They did this with that in mind, Like, Okay, we
we like Trubisky. Obviously, Mitch likes being here, and so
we'll make sure Dale is.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I got the you hears some people saying Rudolph wouldn't
return to this team they did him wrong, or it
feels like, you know what, he wouldn't want to stick around.
He thinks you should be the starter. Like I think
they're pretty happy. I think they want to be Steelers,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, it's it speaks to the locker room culture that
they have here. I think it speaks to you know,
Mike Tomlin got a bad rap with with some of
the guys. For example, Melvin Ingram has his situation and
everybody says, why I didn't Mike tom You know, why
didn't Mike Tomlin nip in the butt? Here's what you
(03:50):
don't know in that situation. What was his agent telling
him when he signed that contract.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Hey, you're gonna go in there and you're gonna have
a chance to start.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
That may have never been the the k I'm sure
it wasn't because they liked Alex high Smith. But you
don't know what the agent's telling these guys, right.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Or maybe Ingram just selectively hears things. You know, maybe
the agent tells them, well, this might be a spot
where you can maybe start. Oh I'm a starter, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, I'm gonna stay right.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
But because a lot of times anyway, Yeah, agents will
tell their clients what they want them to think based
on where they want them to sign with.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You know, maybe they have the it's the most money involved, Well.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Just go go there because you're gonna have you know,
they're gonna I'll make an extra one hundred thousand dollars
if you sign here and oh but yeah, you could
start there.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, absolutely, you could start there.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
But the reality is, I think that quarterback room is happy.
They want to be here. I'm sure, including Rudolph, had
other options. I mean, other teams talk to him, and
you know, I'm sure the Steelers kept in touch. I'm
sure they've talked about this with Trubisky for a while.
And frankly, you and I have been saying for two
months that they could always just tack a year on.
(05:08):
I didn't see him tacking two years on, but you
could tack a year on. You know, everyone was talking
about it, they're going to cut Trubisky, and I think
you came up with it before I did. Was the
smarter move is to extend them, you know, really cap space.
That was before free agency even open. You know, if
you're hurting for cap space, keep them and extend them. Well,
now you kind of did both.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, you know, I was listening to NFL Serious NFL
yesterday and Jim Miller and Pat Kerwin we're talking about this.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And Jim Miller lives in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
He played for the Bears, he's still tied in with
that team, and he was like, I don't know why Mitch,
Mitch Trubisky would want to do this, you know, doesn't
he want to go somewhere else and try to be
a starter.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
You know, maybe ask is where you're going with that, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I mean he has a high, high opinion of him.
And you know the thing.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The thing about it is, Mitch Trubisky grew up just
south of Cleveland, Yeah, right, right, He's pretty close to
home right now. Mitch Trubisky's wife last year had their
had their first baby.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Okay, I mean people forget these guys a human beings. Yeah,
I mean this is close to the home. Maybe grandparents
were moving here or who knows, you.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Know, and you know, you look at for example, you
look at you see what happened with Geno Smith last year.
Geno Smith's thirty two years old and had hadn't gotten
a chance to be a starter in the last ten years.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
And his career was worse than Trubisky's before last year.
Without question, Oh, absolutely, Trubisky is a far better Trubisky's
been in a Pro Bowl, right right.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
You know, not that that means anything, but he he
led the Bears to a thirteen and three record the
one year.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Right, and I don't think this is in the cards.
But what if Gino Smith gets hurt, Seattle might call
you for one of your guys too, you know, like,
it's never a bad idea to have three good quarterbacks
in the building, is my point.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I hear people talking about, you know, the Rudolph signing, like, oh,
that's if Rudolph has to play. They're screwed anyways, are they?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I don't know they are.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Does they've there's five, four and one as a starter,
And I might add that a couple of those starts
were with the JV team.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Oh yeah they were. Yeah. I mean I think you
can win games with all three of these guys.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, you could figure, I mean they did. They've done
it in the past. They've won games with these guys absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
And again I think their best football could be is
possibly ahead of all three. And I say that full
well knowing. I think Kenny's is you know, the pickets,
the best best is in front of them. But I mean,
I don't have a crystal ball. And one year ago,
if you asked me about Mac Jones, I would say
he's the one rookie that's out of the woods. He's
(07:44):
a starter. I know, that about him, and now I don't.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Well there, I mean there's some caveats there, and we
talked about the I mean that that was again Belichicks Hubris.
I'm gonna go into this season. He doesn't need an
offensive coordinator. I'm just gonna make I'm gonna make my
my defensive line coach. He's going to be the right
he's going to be the offensive coordinator because he's been
a head coach before.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
He's really yeah, yeah that didn't work out.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Right right, I'm not even blaming mac Jones. My point
is just don't birds in the hand don't really exist
in the NFL. I think Kenny's gonna be really good.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
But like, yeah, likewise, though, like if and I did
this for a five for Friday, I don't know, three
months ago, if you look back at Josh Allen's career,
right and how it went, like nobody was talking about
Brian Daball as a head coaching candidate in his After
(08:37):
his first season as the Bill's offensive coordinator, they averaged
sixteen points per game.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, Allen was bad.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
The next year they averaged about nineteen points per game,
and then they made that jump in year three and
then all of a sudden, Brian Dable is a genius.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
I think that's when they traded for Diggs. And oh,
by the way, Allen did get a lot better, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, well, and maybe those two things go hand in hand.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
No doubt, no doubt he had.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Oh look, I got a number one receiver.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I'm just gonna throw the ball to him all the time, right.
That doesn't take a lot of you know, thinking there.
So you know, guys make quarterback.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
These quarterback ascensions aren't linear. I mean, they're presets backwards,
five steps up, you know. I mean it's choppy. I
mean there's rough waters ahead for a picket.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, you just hope that, you know, it's not super rough.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
And I think that's why when you look at the
Steelers offense, what they've done.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Is really smart.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
They're not putting they're not putting everything on pickets plate exactly.
They're gonna say, Hey, we're gonna come out and we're
gonna we're gonna be we want to be able to
run the football, and we're gonna get better. We're gonna
get better up front, and we're gonna run the football
better and take take some of the pressure off of
our young quarterback. It's the same exact thing that they
did with Ben Roethlisberger early in his career.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Now that's a good point. I hadn't thought of that, right.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Like, they didn't put it all on Ben's plate his
first years. There were times when they said, okay, Ben,
go cut it loose.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, and he was able.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
To do that. But by and large, they wanted to
run the football and play defense.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
And that's not an outdated philosophy. I think that that translates.
And I don't mean to talk to you about this,
and I wish I knew where I stole it from,
to be honest, because I didn't come up with this
idea and I listened to a million podcasts. But when
you have a run game, I heard, I forget who
was ascribing it this way, your offense has a very
(10:31):
nice floor if you have a run game. Oh yeah,
you know what I mean. Like that's the jump off point.
And you really want your run game, I mean, trust me,
I harp on this more than anything. You need big plays,
you need explosives. Steelers need to generate explosives. But explosive
generating explosives in the run game is a little not
(10:53):
as sticky year to year, you know what I mean,
like someone's got to get free, and you know, you
got to bust a long Onely, what you want from
your run game is efficiency, and then you have a
floor as an entire offense. And I think that might
already be in place before the editions.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
They did that in the second half of last season.
Their floor was pretty darn good with that run game. Now,
there were some there were some circumstances that held the
offense back a little bit in the second half, mostly
weather related. If you think about they average twenty one
points per game over their last nine games. If they
had done that for the season they would have it
(11:33):
would have been twentieth in the league in offense.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Okay, Yeah, So I don't know if you saw this either,
and I don't think Pro football focus is gospel, but
they had a breakout player for every team in the league,
who do they expect to take the biggest leap? And
to their credit, they went third safeties. You know, guards
that had three hundred snaps last year that might be
(11:57):
starters this year. So they didn't just take the hanging fruit, right,
But they took Kenny Pickett for the Steelers and I
think we've ranked and mentioned this before, but I just
want to read like two sentences that they wrote, is okay,
pickets seventy five point five overall grade for the whole
year ranked eighteenth amongst quarterbacks, and he was second best
(12:20):
and oh no, I'm sorry, and he was amongst the
best at the position during the last seven weeks of
the season. In fact, he earned the second highest PFF
passing grade during those seven weeks, behind only Joe Burrow,
and was second in Big Time throw percentage and also
posted the lowest turnover worthy play percentage. So he was
(12:43):
second in Big Time throws, first in turnover worthy plays,
and second in their grading scale over the last seven weeks.
That's pretty good. I mean the names mentioned here are
Joe Burrow and Pat Mahomes.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, that's why you know when people talk about the
Steelers and I think they're classically underrated going into this season,
Like people, well, Kim Penny, can Kenny Pickett take the
next step?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Can Kenny Pickett do this? Can Ny Pickett do that?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And then they want to say, way, he threw seven
touchdown passes and nine interceptions in his rookie year. M
Like they're they're just looking at the stats.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
They didn't watch him play.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Don't grab his football card and look at the back
of it and be like, ah, he's not good. You know,
that's that's basically what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
He did everything that they asked him to do in
the second half of last year.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
They didn't put a lot on his plate.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
They didn't want him going out there and throwing the
football forty five times a game. They did that early
in when he first started. Because they're playing Buffalo, they're
playing Philadelphia, You're playing some of those teams that they
needed to go out there and be you know, they
got behind early.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
And I forget how he just phrased it. He said
something about can Pickett take the next step? Well, he
took a huge step throwing the by You.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Know, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
They different plays and so if you make those again,
if you go into this season and you say, Kenny,
we don't need you to be superman out there. We
don't need you to be twenty fifteen Ben Roethlisberger. What
we need from you is that is to get us
in and out a good place, which he should be
much better at this year. I would assume he's got
(14:19):
more experience under his belt. They'll give him a little
more leeway to do that kind of stuff and also
make five big, big time throws for us a game.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
That's what I saying, Like if he's second, which she
won't be second again, and quote big time throws, which
isn't gospel. I mean that's sort of a subjective term.
But if you're high in that neighborhood, you're making big
plays too. I mean you're not just not handing the
ball off and scrambling here and there and throwing screens.
I mean, you're making big time quarterback plays. And what
(14:52):
more do you ask for?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Right? That's exactly what you want out of your quarterback.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
That's what the Steelers wanted from Ben Roethlisberger essentially his
three or four years in the league.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
That's what he did. That's what he was. He got
the tag of game manager. Well he didn't.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
He wasn't a game manager like people. Look at his
his Super Bowl in two thousand and five. He was
nine for twenty one or whatever it was. He didn't
play well, but he made a couple of big time throws.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
It's funny because I don't know what the deal is lately,
but on NFL network. There's been so much Steeler stuff,
and they showed that entire game, and I watched every
play of it within the last four days or whatever
and thought the same thing. I'm like, man, I hardly
even recognize that Ben. He looks lost at times, but
(15:39):
there were five or six that were okay. I mean
the game.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
He's one of like three guys on the planet that
could make that play right, right, And if you think
about that run through the playoffs that year, they came
out throwing in the playoffs to be able to run later.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
So you have a better memory than I do, and
we're closer to the team. He played better in the
playoffs than he did the Super Bowl, so.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Easily like his game he tore.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He tore the Denver Broncos apart in that AFC championship.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Three, I think he had three touchdown passes in the
first half, and then they just took.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
The air out of the ball because they knew Denver
wasn't going to score and was good.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
They were a Super Bowl team.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Seattle was a good I mean, oh, by the way,
they beat the Colts the week before that, because Ben
came out throwing the football like yeah, you know, they
beat they came back. That the Bengals were up on
them in that game. People forget that Carson Palmer hit
kick Chris Henry down the sideline for a long touchdown
and Steelers I think, if I remember correctly, they might
have been down two scores and.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Ben stuff was showing up then already. But it's already
shown up with Kenny. I mean a lot of the
clutch plays he made in the second half of the
year without putting the ball in harm's way are really encouraging.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Absolutely. I mean that's the one thing that you can't
there's no measurement for that.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
No, no, no, there's no all this.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
You know, there's there's no h this guy makes plays
in the clutch statistic other than you know, game winning
drives and fourth quarter comebacks and things of that nature,
and those are those can be subjective as well. Thank
you that you know, your defense picks one off and
returns it to the five yard line and you hand
it off twice and it goes in for a touchdown
(17:22):
and the quarterback gets a credit for you know, a
game winning drive and a fourth quarter comeback.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
He didn't do anything, or you kickoff return or has
a nice return and you complete a pass and then
you hand it to Bettest and then Boswall comes out
and kicks a field goal. It's like, well, yeah, sometimes
you're on your own five and you l weigh it
down the field like it's not too Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
You know, that's what we saw from picket lat those
situations he was in last year. That's what he did.
He took the team down the field. We saw that
early in Ben Roethlisberger's career that he was able to
do that and take the team down the field. That's
that clutch gene. Not everybody has that.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
No, right right, I mean I don't think his heart
races or the moment doesn't feel too big for those
type of things.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
And sometimes it narrows their focus. Even they get they
get better in those situations.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Laser focused, you know Montana's and those.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, those are the guys that that you know, become
the legends. You know, look at Drew Brees' career, what
he played twenty years.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
In a league or whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I mean, he was the all time leader, but when
you look at the fourth quarter comebacks and game winning
drives and that kind of stuff, he wasn't up there
with the Bradys in the Roethlisbergers and the Mannings.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
He played. He played as many, if not more games
than those guys.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I mean, I adore Aaron Rodgers. But that's his one
blemish too.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
That's not Yeah, he's not He's not up among those
those leaders in that you know.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So sometimes I hope people don't take this conversation as
Kenny's the next breeze run.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
That's all we're saying at all. And you know, but
he does, he does have some traits he does.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
And again, I mean, the only chance this team has
if Kenny takes a big step forward. I've already seen
him take a step forward. There's been a lot of
quarterbacks that have been drafting the last five years that
didn't already take a step forward to the size that
he did.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Did you see what Jason Kelsey had to say about
Isaac Samalo.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
No, but I bet it's high, high praise.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
It's extremely high praise. Let me let me get the
exact quotes here for you.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Man.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I added it into my FI.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Again, I haven't seen it. I what what I didn't
know about Salomolo until I really started digging into him
after the signing was his football intelligence is like rare.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Well, and that's that's exactly what I was talking about here.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
If he's not shouldered to shoulder with a Hall of
Fame center, he's probably in charge of every other line
calls in the league except for the Eagles, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
He said, I think he's one of the best guards
in the NFL, and I think he has been. I
think he he's one of the most consistent players I've
ever been around.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I'm one of the most consistent people.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I've ever been around. So we're not going to replace Isaac.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
He said.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Isaac is a really really special player. I know we've
said that for a long time, and I still don't people.
I still don't think people really have a true grasp
of what he did for our room and me personally.
I think he's probably the smartest player I've ever been around,
really really gifted physically mentally across the board. So I
think the Steelers are getting a steal.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
That's a good pun.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I guess this is coming from a guy who's a
potential Hall of Fame center.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Oh he's going, yeah, yeah, who is the.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Best center of this generation?
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yeah? And I'm sure they're friends, you know, I mean,
but he doesn't have to say all that.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
No, he didn't have to say that.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Guy's know his teammate anymore, right, right, and he's and oh,
by the way, you know, in these kinds of situations,
I fans get upset a lot of times when, for example,
Juju Smith Schuster goes to Kansas City and says, oh,
this is the best offense I've ever been in. I've
learned so much. And then he goes to New England
and says, oh, this this situation.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Is so great. Like Cosby Stills and Nash said, you
love the one you're with.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, yeah, you don't go in there and trash and
do Oh this this stinks.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
This is awful. You know, we did this better in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
You don't say that, you know, you don't say that
in the same token if you're Travis, if you if
you're Jason Kelcey and you're gonna be lining up with
a new guy next to you, Yeah, he said, oh, well,
you know, yeah, we really liked Isaac Samalu, but we
got this guy and he's gonna be just as good.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah. Oh, Beef Dragons has been here for a year.
He ready to step right in, you know, right exactly,
And we drafted Tyler Steen. He could be a really
good guard or tackle for us. Well, we won't miss
a beat. We're fine. We should have the best line
in the league.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
That's somebody said. He said, oh, I'm gonna miss this guy.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, and by no means am I giving Mason Cole
a tough time. He's a center, But I guarantee you
Solamalu could be a star center too. I mean, I
have no doubt in my mind he could do any
of those. And frankly, I'm sure I even said this
on the show. Before that signing and the heat of
free agency, I probably said, well, they're done in an
interior line. And I was shocked when that one came
(22:03):
across science. Oh he's a big ticket item and they
got him a nice price, and I thought, man, that's
almost an embarrassment of interior riches. But then you start
looking at him, I'm like, why wouldn't you. I mean,
this guy's maybe the best. He's a clear upgrade yeah
what they had.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So yeah, So I think they they should be able
to run the football much more consistently. They should be
able to protect Kenny Pickett much more consistently.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And if they're.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Able to do those things, this offense should take off again.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I I I'm not gonna say they're.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Gonna you know, nobody again, Nobody in the league last
year averaged thirty points per game. Let me just say
that again. Nobody in the league averaged thirty points per game.
Nobody in the league averaged twenty nine points per game
last year. Scoring is down. Yeah, scoring is down. So
if you could get that scoring average up from the
eighteen that they averaged last year, if you can get
it up into that twenty three to twenty four points
(22:57):
per game range, they should win a lot of football games.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Yeah, and you said this well the other day. I
bet Boswell has a better percentage of putting it through
the uprights. And I absolutely bet the offense, specifically pick
it will be better in the red zone.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And not only that, but I mean a lot of
times they would get down in the red zone, holding penalty,
all start things of that nature. That just kind of
because they led the league last year in ten plus
play drives.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, it was the Steelers and the Chiefs.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Well, the Steelers and the Chiefs think about that like
they were stringing successful plays together, you know, to the
point where they're getting these ten play drives. A lot
of times they just didn't finish them because they get
to a play eleven or twelve, and.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
There again there'd be a holding penalty, there'd be.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
A false start.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Mahomes overcome some of that.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, So you know, if they continue doing that,
but they don't have the holding penalties or they don't
have the false starts, and that was that's one of
the big problems that they had with Kevin Dotson. That's
what I was gonna say, is Kevin Dotson and more
are guys you can win with, especially Dotson. But I
do think some of the inconsistencies on the left side
(24:16):
of the line, especially at left guard, were costly in
a timely.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Those two combined for twenty penalties last year.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, the offensive line as a whole, I think, if
I remember correctly had twenty six penalties and those two
had twenty of them.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
They had twenty of them. Yeah. Again, I mean, that's.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
It's no accident that they that they've decided, hey, we're
going to try to replace these guys.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
M Yeah. And even speaking of the line, I'm and
say this earlier looking at their starting five last year.
They exceeded my expectations and it ended up being a
good line, not just a serviceable line. But I still
thought when you graded each player, Daniels was the only
one I would say that's an above average NFL starter
or you know, you know the other ones were average below,
(24:59):
none of them were terrible. But now I think you
have two above average guards and potentially well above average
left tackle. We'll see how that happen. I mean, rookies
are gonna struggle, but I mean you have the potential
to have three fifths of your line as above average starters.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, we're gonna take a break.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Here is Matt Williamson. I am Dale Lallie. You're listening
to the drive here on Steelers Nation Radio. And Matt,
did you know that you can listen to Steelers Nation
Radio anytime, anywhere, and you're smart speaker. All you have
to do is say Alexa, play Steelers Nation Radio from
my heart, and Alexa will take.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Care of the rest. We're gonna talk more quarterback stuff
here when we come back.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
At NFL dot Com, broke down the best quarterback or
the best divisions by quarterback you might be surprised where
the AFC North comes in.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
We'll talk about that when we come back right after this.
On the drive
Lisk is The Drive with Dale Lolly and Matt Williamson
on your twenty four to seven home of the Black
and Gold SNR Steelers Nation Radio. Welcome to the Drive.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Dale Lolly, he is Matt Williamson and Matt Well.
A little bit of news. We talked a lot of
quarterbacks on Wednesday show, and lo and behold, the Steelers
not only signed Mason Rudolph to a one year contract,
they give Mitch Trubisky essentially a new deal. He's now
(00:36):
signed through the twenty twenty five season as the Steelers
backup quarterback, gets a two year extension on his current deal,
which lowers the cap number for this year, but also
make sure that they have the quarterback room pretty much
in place now for the next few years. And again,
(00:58):
much like when we talked about Mason Rudolph, there's no downside.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
With this, right and I find it amazing, Like I
keep thinking, boy, pretty soon we're not gonna have any
to talk about, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It's gonna be quiet.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
And then you know, there's releases, there's signings, there's additions.
Now there's a little more cap space, there's more things
gonna come because of this. Who knows, you know, I mean, like,
but what it tells me is they like these three.
You know, they enjoyed working with them last year. They
see progress. I commented this on another outlet and said,
(01:31):
I think it's not crazy to say that all three
of these quarterbacks best football still might be ahead of them,
you know. I mean, I don't think any of their
book is written yet. And you and I went through
that exercise wednesday. I guess it was just talking about
quarterback depth. And they're as good as anyone in the
league right now in that department, and that's really important
(01:51):
in today's NFL.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the quarterback room,
not only do they have depth.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
They've got upside potential.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah uh. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So they've got the young guy in place, and it
just so happens that their young guy is their starter,
right right right, Unlike some other teams where they okay,
they got the starter in place and they draft of
one with some upside. They know who their starter is,
and the starter is the guy who is the young
guy with upside. They've also got experience on the bench.
(02:21):
Yeah yeah, and you know, if something were to happen
to picket, yeah, you know, if Picket were to falter
or Picket were to get hurt, They've got guys waiting
in the wings who who, as Mike Tomlin likes, they're
been there, done that kind of guys.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
It's a great situation.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, And in addition to everything you just said, which
was spot on, it's very financially feasible, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
And that's the other part of this, Matt.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So if you look at this two year extension through
the twenty twenty five season, that gives them Mitch Trubisky
and a reasonable price until they have to start paying Picket.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yeah, right, all right, that's not an accident, right, They
did this.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
They did this with that in mind, Like, Okay, we
we like Trubisky. Obviously, Mitch likes being here, and so
we'll make sure Dale is.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I got the you hears some people saying Rudolph wouldn't
return to this team they did him wrong, or it
feels like, you know what, he wouldn't want to stick around.
He thinks you should be the starter. Like I think
they're pretty happy. I think they want to be Steelers,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, it's it speaks to the locker room culture that
they have here. I think it speaks to you know,
Mike Tomlin got a bad rap with with some of
the guys. For example, Melvin Ingram has his situation and
everybody says, why I didn't Mike tom You know, why
didn't Mike Tomlin nip in the butt? Here's what you
(03:50):
don't know in that situation. What was his agent telling
him when he signed that contract.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Hey, you're gonna go in there and you're gonna have
a chance to start.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
That may have never been the the k I'm sure
it wasn't because they liked Alex high Smith. But you
don't know what the agent's telling these guys, right.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Or maybe Ingram just selectively hears things. You know, maybe
the agent tells them, well, this might be a spot
where you can maybe start. Oh I'm a starter, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, I'm gonna stay right.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
But because a lot of times anyway, Yeah, agents will
tell their clients what they want them to think based
on where they want them to sign with.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You know, maybe they have the it's the most money involved, Well.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Just go go there because you're gonna have you know,
they're gonna I'll make an extra one hundred thousand dollars
if you sign here and oh but yeah, you could
start there.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, absolutely, you could start there.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
But the reality is, I think that quarterback room is happy.
They want to be here. I'm sure, including Rudolph, had
other options. I mean, other teams talk to him, and
you know, I'm sure the Steelers kept in touch. I'm
sure they've talked about this with Trubisky for a while.
And frankly, you and I have been saying for two
months that they could always just tack a year on.
(05:08):
I didn't see him tacking two years on, but you
could tack a year on. You know, everyone was talking
about it, they're going to cut Trubisky, and I think
you came up with it before I did. Was the
smarter move is to extend them, you know, really cap space.
That was before free agency even open. You know, if
you're hurting for cap space, keep them and extend them. Well,
now you kind of did both.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, you know, I was listening to NFL Serious NFL
yesterday and Jim Miller and Pat Kerwin we're talking about this.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And Jim Miller lives in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
He played for the Bears, he's still tied in with
that team, and he was like, I don't know why Mitch,
Mitch Trubisky would want to do this, you know, doesn't
he want to go somewhere else and try to be
a starter.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
You know, maybe ask is where you're going with that, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I mean he has a high, high opinion of him.
And you know the thing.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The thing about it is, Mitch Trubisky grew up just
south of Cleveland, Yeah, right, right, He's pretty close to
home right now. Mitch Trubisky's wife last year had their
had their first baby.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Okay, I mean people forget these guys a human beings. Yeah,
I mean this is close to the home. Maybe grandparents
were moving here or who knows, you.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Know, and you know, you look at for example, you
look at you see what happened with Geno Smith last year.
Geno Smith's thirty two years old and had hadn't gotten
a chance to be a starter in the last ten years.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
And his career was worse than Trubisky's before last year.
Without question, Oh, absolutely, Trubisky is a far better Trubisky's
been in a Pro Bowl, right right.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
You know, not that that means anything, but he he
led the Bears to a thirteen and three record the
one year.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Right, and I don't think this is in the cards.
But what if Gino Smith gets hurt, Seattle might call
you for one of your guys too, you know, like,
it's never a bad idea to have three good quarterbacks
in the building, is my point.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I hear people talking about, you know, the Rudolph signing, like, oh,
that's if Rudolph has to play. They're screwed anyways, are they?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I don't know they are.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Does they've there's five, four and one as a starter,
And I might add that a couple of those starts
were with the JV team.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Oh yeah they were. Yeah. I mean I think you
can win games with all three of these guys.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, you could figure, I mean they did. They've done
it in the past. They've won games with these guys absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
And again I think their best football could be is
possibly ahead of all three. And I say that full
well knowing. I think Kenny's is you know, the pickets,
the best best is in front of them. But I mean,
I don't have a crystal ball. And one year ago,
if you asked me about Mac Jones, I would say
he's the one rookie that's out of the woods. He's
(07:44):
a starter. I know, that about him, and now I don't.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Well there, I mean there's some caveats there, and we
talked about the I mean that that was again Belichicks Hubris.
I'm gonna go into this season. He doesn't need an
offensive coordinator. I'm just gonna make I'm gonna make my
my defensive line coach. He's going to be the right
he's going to be the offensive coordinator because he's been
a head coach before.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
He's really yeah, yeah that didn't work out.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Right right, I'm not even blaming mac Jones. My point
is just don't birds in the hand don't really exist
in the NFL. I think Kenny's gonna be really good.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
But like, yeah, likewise, though, like if and I did
this for a five for Friday, I don't know, three
months ago, if you look back at Josh Allen's career,
right and how it went, like nobody was talking about
Brian Daball as a head coaching candidate in his After
(08:37):
his first season as the Bill's offensive coordinator, they averaged
sixteen points per game.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, Allen was bad.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
The next year they averaged about nineteen points per game,
and then they made that jump in year three and
then all of a sudden, Brian Dable is a genius.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
I think that's when they traded for Diggs. And oh,
by the way, Allen did get a lot better, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, well, and maybe those two things go hand in hand.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
No doubt, no doubt he had.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Oh look, I got a number one receiver.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I'm just gonna throw the ball to him all the time, right.
That doesn't take a lot of you know, thinking there.
So you know, guys make quarterback.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
These quarterback ascensions aren't linear. I mean, they're presets backwards,
five steps up, you know. I mean it's choppy. I
mean there's rough waters ahead for a picket.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, you just hope that, you know, it's not super rough.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
And I think that's why when you look at the
Steelers offense, what they've done.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Is really smart.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
They're not putting they're not putting everything on pickets plate exactly.
They're gonna say, Hey, we're gonna come out and we're
gonna we're gonna be we want to be able to
run the football, and we're gonna get better. We're gonna
get better up front, and we're gonna run the football
better and take take some of the pressure off of
our young quarterback. It's the same exact thing that they
did with Ben Roethlisberger early in his career.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Now that's a good point. I hadn't thought of that, right.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Like, they didn't put it all on Ben's plate his
first years. There were times when they said, okay, Ben,
go cut it loose.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, and he was able.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
To do that. But by and large, they wanted to
run the football and play defense.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
And that's not an outdated philosophy. I think that that translates.
And I don't mean to talk to you about this,
and I wish I knew where I stole it from,
to be honest, because I didn't come up with this
idea and I listened to a million podcasts. But when
you have a run game, I heard, I forget who
was ascribing it this way, your offense has a very
(10:31):
nice floor if you have a run game. Oh yeah,
you know what I mean. Like that's the jump off point.
And you really want your run game, I mean, trust me,
I harp on this more than anything. You need big plays,
you need explosives. Steelers need to generate explosives. But explosive
generating explosives in the run game is a little not
(10:53):
as sticky year to year, you know what I mean,
like someone's got to get free, and you know, you
got to bust a long Onely, what you want from
your run game is efficiency, and then you have a
floor as an entire offense. And I think that might
already be in place before the editions.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
They did that in the second half of last season.
Their floor was pretty darn good with that run game. Now,
there were some there were some circumstances that held the
offense back a little bit in the second half, mostly
weather related. If you think about they average twenty one
points per game over their last nine games. If they
had done that for the season they would have it
(11:33):
would have been twentieth in the league in offense.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Okay, Yeah, So I don't know if you saw this either,
and I don't think Pro football focus is gospel, but
they had a breakout player for every team in the league,
who do they expect to take the biggest leap? And
to their credit, they went third safeties. You know, guards
that had three hundred snaps last year that might be
(11:57):
starters this year. So they didn't just take the hanging fruit, right,
But they took Kenny Pickett for the Steelers and I
think we've ranked and mentioned this before, but I just
want to read like two sentences that they wrote, is okay,
pickets seventy five point five overall grade for the whole
year ranked eighteenth amongst quarterbacks, and he was second best
(12:20):
and oh no, I'm sorry, and he was amongst the
best at the position during the last seven weeks of
the season. In fact, he earned the second highest PFF
passing grade during those seven weeks, behind only Joe Burrow,
and was second in Big Time throw percentage and also
posted the lowest turnover worthy play percentage. So he was
(12:43):
second in Big Time throws, first in turnover worthy plays,
and second in their grading scale over the last seven weeks.
That's pretty good. I mean the names mentioned here are
Joe Burrow and Pat Mahomes.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, that's why you know when people talk about the
Steelers and I think they're classically underrated going into this season,
Like people, well, Kim Penny, can Kenny Pickett take the
next step?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Can Kenny Pickett do this? Can Ny Pickett do that?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And then they want to say, way, he threw seven
touchdown passes and nine interceptions in his rookie year. M
Like they're they're just looking at the stats.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
They didn't watch him play.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Don't grab his football card and look at the back
of it and be like, ah, he's not good. You know,
that's that's basically what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
He did everything that they asked him to do in
the second half of last year.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
They didn't put a lot on his plate.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
They didn't want him going out there and throwing the
football forty five times a game. They did that early
in when he first started. Because they're playing Buffalo, they're
playing Philadelphia, You're playing some of those teams that they
needed to go out there and be you know, they
got behind early.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
And I forget how he just phrased it. He said
something about can Pickett take the next step? Well, he
took a huge step throwing the by You.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Know, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
They different plays and so if you make those again,
if you go into this season and you say, Kenny,
we don't need you to be superman out there. We
don't need you to be twenty fifteen Ben Roethlisberger. What
we need from you is that is to get us
in and out a good place, which he should be
much better at this year. I would assume he's got
(14:19):
more experience under his belt. They'll give him a little
more leeway to do that kind of stuff and also
make five big, big time throws for us a game.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
That's what I saying, Like if he's second, which she
won't be second again, and quote big time throws, which
isn't gospel. I mean that's sort of a subjective term.
But if you're high in that neighborhood, you're making big
plays too. I mean you're not just not handing the
ball off and scrambling here and there and throwing screens.
I mean, you're making big time quarterback plays. And what
(14:52):
more do you ask for?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Right? That's exactly what you want out of your quarterback.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
That's what the Steelers wanted from Ben Roethlisberger essentially his
three or four years in the league.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
That's what he did. That's what he was. He got
the tag of game manager. Well he didn't.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
He wasn't a game manager like people. Look at his
his Super Bowl in two thousand and five. He was
nine for twenty one or whatever it was. He didn't
play well, but he made a couple of big time throws.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
It's funny because I don't know what the deal is lately,
but on NFL network. There's been so much Steeler stuff,
and they showed that entire game, and I watched every
play of it within the last four days or whatever
and thought the same thing. I'm like, man, I hardly
even recognize that Ben. He looks lost at times, but
(15:39):
there were five or six that were okay. I mean
the game.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
He's one of like three guys on the planet that
could make that play right, right, And if you think
about that run through the playoffs that year, they came
out throwing in the playoffs to be able to run later.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
So you have a better memory than I do, and
we're closer to the team. He played better in the
playoffs than he did the Super Bowl, so.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Easily like his game he tore.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He tore the Denver Broncos apart in that AFC championship.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Three, I think he had three touchdown passes in the
first half, and then they just took.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
The air out of the ball because they knew Denver
wasn't going to score and was good.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
They were a Super Bowl team.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Seattle was a good I mean, oh, by the way,
they beat the Colts the week before that, because Ben
came out throwing the football like yeah, you know, they
beat they came back. That the Bengals were up on
them in that game. People forget that Carson Palmer hit
kick Chris Henry down the sideline for a long touchdown
and Steelers I think, if I remember correctly, they might
have been down two scores and.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Ben stuff was showing up then already. But it's already
shown up with Kenny. I mean a lot of the
clutch plays he made in the second half of the
year without putting the ball in harm's way are really encouraging.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Absolutely. I mean that's the one thing that you can't
there's no measurement for that.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
No, no, no, there's no all this.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
You know, there's there's no h this guy makes plays
in the clutch statistic other than you know, game winning
drives and fourth quarter comebacks and things of that nature,
and those are those can be subjective as well. Thank
you that you know, your defense picks one off and
returns it to the five yard line and you hand
it off twice and it goes in for a touchdown
(17:22):
and the quarterback gets a credit for you know, a
game winning drive and a fourth quarter comeback.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
He didn't do anything, or you kickoff return or has
a nice return and you complete a pass and then
you hand it to Bettest and then Boswall comes out
and kicks a field goal. It's like, well, yeah, sometimes
you're on your own five and you l weigh it
down the field like it's not too Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
You know, that's what we saw from picket lat those
situations he was in last year. That's what he did.
He took the team down the field. We saw that
early in Ben Roethlisberger's career that he was able to
do that and take the team down the field. That's
that clutch gene. Not everybody has that.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
No, right right, I mean I don't think his heart
races or the moment doesn't feel too big for those
type of things.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
And sometimes it narrows their focus. Even they get they
get better in those situations.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Laser focused, you know Montana's and those.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, those are the guys that that you know, become
the legends. You know, look at Drew Brees' career, what
he played twenty years.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
In a league or whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I mean, he was the all time leader, but when
you look at the fourth quarter comebacks and game winning
drives and that kind of stuff, he wasn't up there
with the Bradys in the Roethlisbergers and the Mannings.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
He played. He played as many, if not more games
than those guys.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I mean, I adore Aaron Rodgers. But that's his one
blemish too.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
That's not Yeah, he's not He's not up among those
those leaders in that you know.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So sometimes I hope people don't take this conversation as
Kenny's the next breeze run.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
That's all we're saying at all. And you know, but
he does, he does have some traits he does.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
And again, I mean, the only chance this team has
if Kenny takes a big step forward. I've already seen
him take a step forward. There's been a lot of
quarterbacks that have been drafting the last five years that
didn't already take a step forward to the size that
he did.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Did you see what Jason Kelsey had to say about
Isaac Samalo.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
No, but I bet it's high, high praise.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
It's extremely high praise. Let me let me get the
exact quotes here for you.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Man.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I added it into my FI.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Again, I haven't seen it. I what what I didn't
know about Salomolo until I really started digging into him
after the signing was his football intelligence is like rare.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Well, and that's that's exactly what I was talking about here.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
If he's not shouldered to shoulder with a Hall of
Fame center, he's probably in charge of every other line
calls in the league except for the Eagles, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
He said, I think he's one of the best guards
in the NFL, and I think he has been. I
think he he's one of the most consistent players I've
ever been around.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I'm one of the most consistent people.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I've ever been around. So we're not going to replace Isaac.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
He said.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Isaac is a really really special player. I know we've
said that for a long time, and I still don't people.
I still don't think people really have a true grasp
of what he did for our room and me personally.
I think he's probably the smartest player I've ever been around,
really really gifted physically mentally across the board. So I
think the Steelers are getting a steal.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
That's a good pun.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I guess this is coming from a guy who's a
potential Hall of Fame center.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Oh he's going, yeah, yeah, who is the.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Best center of this generation?
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yeah? And I'm sure they're friends, you know, I mean,
but he doesn't have to say all that.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
No, he didn't have to say that.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Guy's know his teammate anymore, right, right, and he's and oh,
by the way, you know, in these kinds of situations,
I fans get upset a lot of times when, for example,
Juju Smith Schuster goes to Kansas City and says, oh,
this is the best offense I've ever been in. I've
learned so much. And then he goes to New England
and says, oh, this this situation.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Is so great. Like Cosby Stills and Nash said, you
love the one you're with.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, yeah, you don't go in there and trash and
do Oh this this stinks.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
This is awful. You know, we did this better in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
You don't say that, you know, you don't say that
in the same token if you're Travis, if you if
you're Jason Kelcey and you're gonna be lining up with
a new guy next to you, Yeah, he said, oh, well,
you know, yeah, we really liked Isaac Samalu, but we
got this guy and he's gonna be just as good.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah. Oh, Beef Dragons has been here for a year.
He ready to step right in, you know, right exactly,
And we drafted Tyler Steen. He could be a really
good guard or tackle for us. Well, we won't miss
a beat. We're fine. We should have the best line
in the league.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
That's somebody said. He said, oh, I'm gonna miss this guy.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, and by no means am I giving Mason Cole
a tough time. He's a center, But I guarantee you
Solamalu could be a star center too. I mean, I
have no doubt in my mind he could do any
of those. And frankly, I'm sure I even said this
on the show. Before that signing and the heat of
free agency, I probably said, well, they're done in an
interior line. And I was shocked when that one came
(22:03):
across science. Oh he's a big ticket item and they
got him a nice price, and I thought, man, that's
almost an embarrassment of interior riches. But then you start
looking at him, I'm like, why wouldn't you. I mean,
this guy's maybe the best. He's a clear upgrade yeah
what they had.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So yeah, So I think they they should be able
to run the football much more consistently. They should be
able to protect Kenny Pickett much more consistently.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And if they're.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Able to do those things, this offense should take off again.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I I I'm not gonna say they're.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Gonna you know, nobody again, Nobody in the league last
year averaged thirty points per game. Let me just say
that again. Nobody in the league averaged thirty points per game.
Nobody in the league averaged twenty nine points per game
last year. Scoring is down. Yeah, scoring is down. So
if you could get that scoring average up from the
eighteen that they averaged last year, if you can get
it up into that twenty three to twenty four points
(22:57):
per game range, they should win a lot of football games.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Yeah, and you said this well the other day. I
bet Boswell has a better percentage of putting it through
the uprights. And I absolutely bet the offense, specifically pick
it will be better in the red zone.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And not only that, but I mean a lot of
times they would get down in the red zone, holding penalty,
all start things of that nature. That just kind of
because they led the league last year in ten plus
play drives.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, it was the Steelers and the Chiefs.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Well, the Steelers and the Chiefs think about that like
they were stringing successful plays together, you know, to the
point where they're getting these ten play drives. A lot
of times they just didn't finish them because they get
to a play eleven or twelve, and.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
There again there'd be a holding penalty, there'd be.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
A false start.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Mahomes overcome some of that.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, So you know, if they continue doing that,
but they don't have the holding penalties or they don't
have the false starts, and that was that's one of
the big problems that they had with Kevin Dotson. That's
what I was gonna say, is Kevin Dotson and more
are guys you can win with, especially Dotson. But I
do think some of the inconsistencies on the left side
(24:16):
of the line, especially at left guard, were costly in
a timely.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Those two combined for twenty penalties last year.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, the offensive line as a whole, I think, if
I remember correctly had twenty six penalties and those two
had twenty of them.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
They had twenty of them. Yeah. Again, I mean, that's.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
It's no accident that they that they've decided, hey, we're
going to try to replace these guys.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
M Yeah. And even speaking of the line, I'm and
say this earlier looking at their starting five last year.
They exceeded my expectations and it ended up being a
good line, not just a serviceable line. But I still
thought when you graded each player, Daniels was the only
one I would say that's an above average NFL starter
or you know, you know the other ones were average below,
(24:59):
none of them were terrible. But now I think you
have two above average guards and potentially well above average
left tackle. We'll see how that happen. I mean, rookies
are gonna struggle, but I mean you have the potential
to have three fifths of your line as above average starters.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, we're gonna take a break.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Here is Matt Williamson. I am Dale Lallie. You're listening
to the drive here on Steelers Nation Radio. And Matt,
did you know that you can listen to Steelers Nation
Radio anytime, anywhere, and you're smart speaker. All you have
to do is say Alexa, play Steelers Nation Radio from
my heart, and Alexa will take.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Care of the rest. We're gonna talk more quarterback stuff
here when we come back.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
At NFL dot Com, broke down the best quarterback or
the best divisions by quarterback you might be surprised where
the AFC North comes in.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
We'll talk about that when we come back right after this.
On the drive
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