AFC North hangs in the balance as Steelers travel to Baltimore

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Underground, The steel City Underground, the black
and gold standard for Pittsburgh Steelers coverage. Now here's your hoes.
Joe Kuzma and Brian E. Rose.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the steels
City Underground podcast. My name is Joe Kuzma, joining me
here by my side of one mister Brian E. Roach.
Fiftieth anniversary of the Terrible Towe, my friend, your sport
and everything.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
That's what they were.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Celebrating last week, even though the Steelers couldn't celebrate much
with that loss to the Buffalo Bills. How you doing,
my friend, I am struggling through a.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Quagmire of misery and awfulness.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Sounds wonderful, by the way, up over my should I
got one of the fiftieth towels there that I'm sporting
as well. I mean it gets sometimes my big old
heads in wait. But I'm back into the microphone and
everybody's be like, well.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
That was too loud.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Wow, Okay, so yeah, you got the Byron Cope shirt
going too right? Yeah, that's slick, dude. I need to
get one of those. So very cool. One of my favorite,
one of my all time favorites. But by easily. That's
my childhood of Steelers fandom for sure, especially you know
growing up where I was, you know, just over the border,

(01:23):
like I kind of, like I said, I could have
walked into western Pennsylvania mile the marker was right there
for the border, and like just that fine line that's there.
Didn't always get the Steelers on TV, so you got
those nasty that team that wears those ugly crap colors.
You know, that's somewhere further north, you know, just you

(01:44):
know what we're talking about. But anyways, I do. They
were upset the Browns fans. I think it was last
week actually, because CBS only had like the contract you know,
they flipped with Fox. They alternate every other week as
to who has the double header, not everybody always has
two NFL games in the afternoon. One of those games
goes unopposed, and CBS only had the one game. And

(02:05):
guess which game they showed, The one that was all
in red on that map last week, right, the Pittsburgh
Steelers at Buffalo Bills. So even in parts of Northeast Ohio,
back in Youngstown where I grew up, you know, it's
you could have drew a straight line a diagonal line
between Youngstown or between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Youngstown's right in
the middle. For the folks that aren't aware of the geography,

(02:27):
they had this little carve out on that map. I
wish I had last week's map. Actually I might still,
but I don't want to confuse anyone because we're already
confused enough right So let me see if I can
pull up at least this week's map and get us
started with some house keeping items as we get ready
for the six and six Baltimore Ravens the six and

(02:48):
six Pittsburgh Steelers at M and T Bank in Baltimore, Maryland,
one o'clock Eastern time, CBS, Jim Nance, Tony Romo, Trac Wolfson.
Pittsburgh Steelers coverage is in the red. So once again
that Youngstown area and actually through Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati
is receiving the Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Ravens game. Cleveland

(03:15):
is actually somewhere. They're on Fox, so the don't have
to worry about them or the Bengals in those markets.
And then there's the one really goofy late game. The
Cleveland area is actually not even getting Pittsburgh, they don't
have them in the Red there. They're getting the Denver
Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders. This makes absolutely you could

(03:38):
never figure these things out from week to week. But
also getting the Steelers and the Ravens. If you're up
in the Dakota's part of Montana, if you're in Los Angeles,
if you're in Phoenix, if you're in most of Texas
not Oklahoma, Oklahoma's getting something else. All of Texas except
for the Houston area. And then you've got part of

(04:00):
like Birmingham, Alabama. You've got Nashville, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia,
part of North Carolina minus Charlotte. You get into you know,
the New England States except for a small carve out there.
Very weird map this week. For the folks that aren't
able to see this on now on video streaming on YouTube, Spotify,

(04:20):
and Facebook, So check us out there if you have
a chance. If you have already, thank you very much.
Except for the guy who said he needed to buy
Apple Care because he couldn't stand my voice, So thank
you for the comments, sir. It was just like this
big long I'm not even gonna get it into it
on here. You get people like that that come at
us because you know, I don't have to agree with everyone. Everybody,

(04:41):
you could have a difference of opinion. But it's almost
like sometimes people feel like we own the team and
we make the decisions. And I also found out when
doing some of these shorter format videos, the shorts and
the reels and whatnot, I was like, people are in
the comments and they're like telling me, no, I would
do this. What is this guy talking? They mean me
by this guy? And I'm like it dawned on me.

(05:03):
It's like I said all those things, but they just
don't watch the whole video, or they just aren't listening,
reading or whatever. Attention span is like you know, a goldfish,
so you know it gets some of that too, I chuckle.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
I try.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
I don't try and take it personally. I don't try
and take when the Steelers have a bad game, Brian,
you know, we get frustrated, you know, we get annoyed.
We know, we get upset. Like Mike Tomlin said, this
is this is an entertainment product, and when we're not entertained,
we're unhappy. And we've been unhappy. We've been unhappy for

(05:36):
quite some time here, and the Steelers are now, you know,
kind of looking over their shoulders. Dare say, must win
game for the rest of this season. They got to
have this one. It doesn't look good based on all
of the things that we've seen leading up to this.
Seems like a team that's floundering. It seems like a
team that's desperate, a team that's lost three of their

(05:58):
last four and let me see and do a little
bit more math here in four of their last six games,
if I have that correct. So they got a very
short period of time to turn this around. The schedule
doesn't look necessarily like it's in their favor. Going to
Baltimore might not look like it's in your favor. But

(06:21):
the Ravens don't look good either. And in Baltimore, let
me tell you, we got to start this by not
even doing like a true preview of just this game,
but just the stuff that's led up to this throughout
the week. Right, so before we get to injury reports
and stuff like that. For all the people that want
to fire Mike Tomlin, I have seen almost a post
for every fan base, some blog, some website. I've seen,

(06:42):
the Giants, I've seen, I've seen the Browns and Bengals
even say it that if Mike Tomlin was fired, would
you take Mike Tomlin as your coach? And these people
are all like yes and yes and yes and yes,
And it's like even Ben Roethlisberger's talking to a change
of scenery. I just thought that's interesting that you even

(07:03):
have your division rivals that respect this coach enough. Now
on the other side of the fence, you've got the
Ravens fans saying the same thing, not necessarily about Mike Tomlin,
but they're just tired of John Harbaugh. They'd have like
a lot of inconsistency there their team. They made some
they made some moves, They made a trade to pick
up a safety, they did a couple other things are able.
Like Mike Tomalin alluded to this and his very long presser.

(07:24):
He took a lot of questions a lot of time
and still said like a lot of nothing. In most cases,
because what's he going to say. He can't say it
the same way we can. You'll lose the whole You'll
lose the team for sure. If you thought that he
lost the team already. So what are the Steelers doing
in this interim? You know to combat. You know, John
Harbaugh and Ravens longtime battling coaches.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Here.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Tomlin is twenty and sixteen against the Ravens. Harbaugh is
fifteen and nineteen. This game is the sixty sixty fourth
overall and fifty ninth regular season meeting between the Steelers
and Ravens. Nine of the last eleven of these have
been decided by seven points or less, including six by
four points or less. But in this game, the bookies Vegas,

(08:11):
the sports books have the Ravens as a six point
favorite at home and over under of only forty two
and a half, so they don't really expect maybe the
Steelers to score much of any points in the Ravens
that have maybe a two score victory if you're reading
into this a little bit, But Mike tomin As, the
head of the Steelers, has won eighty nine, one, thirteen
and two and nineteen seasons. Harboss seventeen seasons with the Ravens,

(08:34):
he's won seventy eight and one ten. So this is
a classic clash of two coaches that do about the
same thing. Their teams have the same kind of ups
and downs and ebbs and flows, And I want to
get into the Steelers being desperate. But I've already been
a little long winded. Let me kick it over to you,
my friend, and you could give it a little start here,
a little put give.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
It the push. I'll give it a push. Look, it's
not there's no hopeful outlook moving into this game, right
There's no lens you can view this game through that
makes you think that the Steelers have a chance to
come out of Baltimore with a victory. Most of the
lenses that you can view the rest of the season
through would indicate that that you know, the team is
not going to make the playoffs, they're not going to

(09:18):
win the division, They're likely going to have their first
losing record, and by the end of the season, we
will have some wholesale changes. Whether that includes the coach
or not, time will tell. But that's the lens you're
sitting at right now to look towards the rest of
the season. And it's not just us. I mean, you know,
talking heads all over the place, Roethlisberger debo people on

(09:39):
all of the major outlooks and channels. Nobody thinks things
are going to get better. You know, we brought in
what thirty nine and a half year old Adam Feeline
in order to right, yes, spruce up our receiving corps,
and I will I will give the Steelers media group
credit on the little short they put on YouTube. They

(10:02):
sped it up so he looks super fast, but I
don't think he's really that fast anymore, you know, who knows. Look,
the Rogers just hasn't looked in sack with the receivers
all season long, right, they have not established a rapport.
Are they going to do it all of a sudden overnight?
I doubt it. I just doubt it. Right There's it

(10:25):
feels highly unlikely that we're going to see any real
change for the remainder of this season. So we're going
to have a rocky road. But you know, stranger things
have happened. You know, they got to eight and eight
with Duck Hodges, so who knows?

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, yeah, Duck Hodges. That name comes up to too frequently.
And I also think about, you know, that's the season
that kind of tanked at the and he threw six
interceptions the last three games, and they had a chance,
they were in that position and then fell. Last season,
the squeaked in because they had already they had won

(11:02):
some games you had. This game in Baltimore, it could
have been a lot different if Russell Wilson didn't have
the turnovers he had that one, like really carrying the
ball real loose on that scramble. They were competitive, but man,
I just don't even know. I don't know if I
see the same That was like the beginning of the
end with last season's team where they started to give up,
like you know, one hundred and fifty two hundred rushing

(11:22):
yards per game. Derek Henry ran all over them with
two games if you include the postseason. The Eagles just
dominated the Steelers. The Kansas City Chiefs dominated the Steelers.
There aren't really get right games left on the schedule.
You can't get right if you lose this and then
play the Dolphins because you've given up a Division A
Division loss to the Ravens and now you'll be a

(11:45):
game behind them. So if the Steelers got that game up,
that also helps stave off the Cincinnati Bengals, who have
a victory against both the Steelers and the Ravens. And
I mean the Bengals have a real uphill battle. They
got what the Packers this weekend too, and I think
they have to go to Green Bay. So if it
wasn't this weekend, it's coming up. But they've got that,
They've got to win out and they got to hope

(12:07):
that some other teams lose, and they need some things
to happen. They also need, like the Steelers or Ravens,
to do things and do things against themselves. So the Steelers,
as usual, control their own destiny. It's not unlike a
Mike Tomlin team vote to be eliminated before the final
week of the season. That usually does not occur. They're
still in They're still in it, We're still watching. We

(12:27):
still have hope. This isn't like the Jets, this isn't
the Raiders, this isn't the Titans, you know, the newer
Titans when Vrabel was there and Malarkey and guys before that.
They're about in the same category of they might make
the postseason, might be the first team out, or something
like that.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
I mean, you said something that resonates to a certain
degree met which is normally we have hope, right no
matter where we are in the season, normally we have hope.
This year doesn't feel like that, right. There is a
different feel like we have been accused of being homers
so much and so often because you know, hey, big surprise,

(13:03):
Captain Obvious were homers and you know, look, you know
that's who we are. But but you know, there are
legitimate reasons over the past four seasons or five seasons
where we you know, things could have swung a different way.
This year. You just don't feel the same at least

(13:24):
I don't, right, I literally do not have that optimism
right now. I don't see a hopeful outlook, even though
statistically it's there. I just don't have faith that this
group is going to get it done.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
It's true, man, I mean the offense, and it's weird
because the offense will score more points. They've actually I
know they've been inconsistent. I know they stall. I know
they there's three and ounce, but then they'll they'll sustain
a ten or twelve play drive that wasn't there when
Matt Canada was doing this and Randy Fickner much the
same thing. And again, there's a lot of things that

(14:01):
I could hold or stay. I want to hold off
on until the off season because people talk about, well,
Talman brings in these coordinators this and that. Look, folks,
I'm gonna bloil it down here and it'll be somebody
in the comments, I doesn't want to playoff game and
blah blah blah blah blah. Ben Roethlisberger shares equal blame
in this. Ben Roethlisberger goes out there and throws interceptions
or take sacks, fumble whatever. He had some very poor

(14:23):
playoff games. Ben Roethlisberger is also the reason Todd Haley
was sent out of town and his best buddy, Randy
Fickner was promoted, and no other quarterback coach was there
hired to replace Randy. It was just the Ben Roethlisberger
show until it wasn't he pops his elbow. He wasn't
quite the same Ben Roethlisberger. He retires, and now you've

(14:44):
been searching for the next guy and putting together some pieces,
and of course Matt Canada came in, as you know,
trying to fit like a square peg into an apple
or something. It's not even like a round hole or
anything like that. With Mat Canada, you're talking about, you know,
apples and bricks. They're not even in the same category.
That guy, he's not even like coaching anywhere right now.

(15:06):
And this way I was feeling about Tarrell Austin. I
just don't know that they're ever going to fix anything
on defense. It's very disheartening that, you know, it's not
the Steeler's way to fire anybody in the middle of
the season and they're talking about which people are going
to have. You know, he got Arthur Smith out of
here talking about Tomlin getting booed too. And you know,
Cabali said, he paraf he paraphrases this, he goes, he

(15:28):
rolls his eyes when people act like a victim or
in the sports entertainment business, our job is to win.
When you're the head coach, coordinator, or quarterback in this league,
it's easy to stand up when you are winning. It
is okay. Now, let's stand up when you're losing. That's
what we need to see, Arthur, we need to see
you know. I guess Aaron Rodgers invited everybody over and
they're doing these little team meeting things and we'll see

(15:49):
if we'll see if anything comes from it. And like
you said, and like I was starting to say, with desperation,
you already mentioned Adam Thielen. What is he thirty five
years old? He already said he's going to retire. Does
he even show up because you know, you think of
the sinking ship and not keeping hostages, and all of
a sudden, you see that Darius Slay, who was a
healthy scratch last week, rightfully slow. He hasn't played well.
He has been a terrible fit for this team. We

(16:11):
thought maybe he'd still have something left, and apparently so
that the Eagles. They tried to claim him, but the
Bills did instead. And now he says, well, wait a minute,
and with Drew Rosenhaus as his agent, shocker there that
contemplating retirement, doesn't even want to play. He doesn't want
to go to Buffalo. He wants to go somewhere warmer,
but he still wanted to go somewhere we could still play.
There's only five weeks left, dude, so excuse me. But

(16:33):
James Pierre, I think it earned that spot. And I
think the Steelers had seen enough out of a Sante
Samuel after getting him a sign as a free agent
coming back from that, you know, a year off and
injured that I think he'll get some play also, and
we'll have to see how that works with the injury report.
Bait Thielen, I don't think is the answer. We haven't
seen Marquez Veldez scantling. What's the word I'm looking for?

(16:56):
Activated or whatever promoted either did a fifty three or
on game days as one of those extra players that
they can promote off the practice squad. That doesn't bode
well for a team that is desperate, and I mean
as Steelers are desperate. Is Roger's going to get on
the same page with feeling. Can Feeling still get a
little shimmy and get free a little more than somebody else?

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Does he have a veteran move?

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Because at this point, when you get up there an
age as a receiver, you can't rely just on your
physical talents anymore. There's going to be somebody younger, faster,
strugger that's playing as a defensive backs that's guarding you.
So you know, now you've got to rely on what
You've got to rely on, the stuff you learned a veteran.
The little tricks. Can you get a little shove off here,
or push or a pool or you know, a double step.

(17:40):
You just know what might work against somebody, particularly if
there's any players that are inexperienced, And I don't know
if that type of stuff is going to work against
Baltimore Ravens or not depends on who's all healthy and
available to play for them. So without further ado, let's
talk about that with the Steelers before we get into
our keys to the game or keys of the game.
So DK Metcalf veteran rest. Jalen Ramsey listed his rest

(18:06):
and did not practice for two days, which is interesting.
So we'll have to see what the Friday outlook is
for Ramsey. Patrick Queen was a did not participate to limited.
Aaron Rodgers had a day off Wednesday, full participant Thursday.
Ben's chronic's been limited all week. Joey Porter showed up Thursday,

(18:27):
is limited with an elbow. Let me tell you, Joey's
been another guy that's been dinged a lot this year.
And I mean he's been playing and playing hurt and
you don't hear his name too much unless it's the
random penalty. So you know, I think Porter's been doing
I think he's been doing aoka. Considering a lot of
people were picking on Slay try and pick on Pierre too,
and I think let's see if he's I don't think

(18:48):
Pierre's listed, is he still? Yeah, he went back to
full in concussion protocol, which is a good sign for him.
Kyle Dugger did not participate on Thursday day pops up.
You had Dante Kent, where the hell has he been?
Ankle and knee limited and then did not participate again.
Pierre in a cacussion protocol. Kelvin Anderson a backup tackle

(19:12):
somebody that they probably need for depth. He goes out
on Wednesday limited and did not participate Thursday. That doesn't
look good TJ with a toe, But I'm told that
that was, you know, almost like Veterans day rest type situation.
Back to full and then Derek Carmon already ruled out
for this upcoming week. That one is going to sting.

(19:33):
A lot smaller list on the raven side of things,
although there is one major one of note that we'll
see right off bat after we see Rasharlod Bateman shows
up Thursday limited. Lamar Jackson was limited Wednesday and did
not participate on Thursday. This is a team that just
came off a Thursday night game with a mini BI
and has their quarterback still in flux, has not thrown

(19:55):
a touchdown pass in the last three games. A lot
of people think it's due to injury. We have let's
say Travis Jones a personal personal day off, Tavius Robinson
limited with the foot, Devontes Walker, a reserve wide receiver
limited with a groin our, Darius Washington one of the
extra safeties limited with achilles, and then Nate Wiggins, who

(20:19):
left the previous Thursday night game that they played in
limited with a foot injury. It'll be interesting to see
if he ends up playing. He's alongside Malachi Starks in
that Ravens defense. I also wanted to mention I know
some folks tune in real quick just to get the
rest of this through. I did say CBS at one o'clock.
But if you're looking for the Steelers on the radio

(20:40):
Serius one sixty one, XM three eighty three, Internet eight
twenty six, your referee is Alex Moore. I don't know
who that is. That should be a good thing. So
there's the rest of the house keeping from not or
it's going to be absolutely terrible. You know, they just
don't give these division I mean there's a division assignments
every week and multiple times, and then everybody plays everybody twice,

(21:03):
so at some point the referees rotate and go through.
But if it was somebody that's really like cutting their
teeth to get this game, and they get a game
with the Steelers or something earlier in the year, probably
an NFC out of conference games, a game that doesn't
have the same stakes.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
Necessarily at all.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
These games have stakes or something at stake usually, but
you know what I mean, some appear to have fewer
things at stake, and this is just two six and
six teams, So maybe it's not your traditional game. Yeah,
maybe it's not your traditional game Steelers.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
It's funny to me that this is a game literally
where first place in the division is on the line,
but it's it is not a marquee game at this point.
Nobody is viewing it as a marquee game anymore. You know.
Ravens Steelers was always the marquee game. It's just not
right now. And that's that's not just a comment on

(21:55):
the state of the Steelers, but also the comment on
the state the Ravens have been in this season. You know,
the downside of that is it looks like we're going
in one direction and potentially they're going in the other.
Although they looked.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Horrible against the Bengals, I don't know really what direction
that they're going in, to be honest, their last few games,
and you think about who they've played since their bye week.
They played the Bears, they won thirty to sixteen. They
played the Miami Dolphins twenty eight to six, the Vikings
twenty seven to nineteen, the Browns twenty three sixteen, the

(22:28):
Jets twenty three to ten, and then lost to the
Bengals thirty two to fourteen. And they got to play
the Steelers and then back to the Bengals and the Patriots,
the Packers and then the Steelers again. And the Steelers
are built to play this team. I don't think this
is a team the Steelers will necessarily overlook. But you
don't have some that you have a lot of new
players that maybe they're not haven't been part of this

(22:49):
organization long enough to maybe have that bad blood that
you would have where everybody like you get a James Harrison,
you get a Ben Roethlisberger, and you get on the
other side, you get you know, Ray Lewis or Terrell
Suggs or you know these guys they had there was
like a legit. Even Sean Sweezeem told me there was
a legit hatred between these teams. Does Jalen Ramsey feel

(23:10):
that same thing necessarily? Does this point Patrick Quill used
to play for him, So does he does he hate him?
Does he dislike him? He's he On the other side,
do the other teammates look at him from the Ravens
that he used to play with and they're like Trader?
You know, something like that. Maybe that's about the most
that you get out of that. What's Aaron Rodgers? You know,
Aaron Rodgers probably had more emotions had he played against

(23:31):
the Bears because he'd been playing them his whole life
instead of, you know, not playing against the Baltimore or
against the Baltimore Ravens this week. So and speaking of that,
that's pretty important too. But we look at the Ravens
defense versus the Pittsburgh Steelers' offense and just giving a
little peek into where did it go? I had all

(23:53):
of these statisticals here, Brian. The Steelers twenty fourth in
pass on offense, twenty eighth in rushing offense. The Ravens
are twenty fifth against the path pass path pat now
I'm talking like Mike tythan they're twenty fifth against the
pass and eighteenth against the run. So the Steelers haven't

(24:16):
been able to run the ball much. They bumped up
from being last in the league at least, which is
hard to believe. And when you flip this around, the
Ravens are actually twenty eighth in passing, fifth in running,
and some of that's because Lamar had been out for
several games, are playing Cooper Rush or playing Snoopuntley or whoever.
And then you've got the Steelers defensively twenty eighth against

(24:37):
the pass, seventeenth against the run, and he had not
looked seventeenth against the run with James Cook and Josh
Allen last week. And that's a very similar thing that
they're looking at down the barrel of with Lamar Jackson
and Derreck Henry. So let's talk for Steelers offense. Because
Aaron Rodgers his hand injury, you don't have very many
injuries on the Ravens defense. You know, the nose tackle

(24:59):
Travis Joe And showed up on this report. I imagine
he'll play. We'll have to see if Nate Wiggins ends
up playing. Marlon Humphrey has been in and out of
this lineup as well. You know, Rokwan Smith is in
the middle of that defense, a great inside linebacker, and
then Kyle van Noy. Van Noy's been somebody who you know,
he had a resurgence, He had a resurgence last season,

(25:20):
but he's you know, he has been the same exact
player this year. In fact, no one on the Baltimore
Ravens has more than two and a half sacks this year,
which is, you know, that's really bad. It's uncharacteristic of
them very much. So, I mean that's the reason why
their fans are just as upset. Van Noy has two,
Mike Green has two and a half, You have Tavis

(25:42):
Robinson was on the report, uh for two, and then
nom Dame matt at Bek, who you know, they just
don't have anybody on on here, and uh matt at
Bek hasn't even been has even been around. So it's
it's an interesting year for Baltimore also, And if the

(26:04):
Steelers were a little bit stronger of a team this season,
they should have been able to just walk away with
the division. As it stands, the real headline that you're
seeing everywhere, aside from the fire mc tomlin stuff, is
which of these damn teams wants to win the AFC North.
It doesn't like it looks like the Bengals.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yes, it's like, who will it be the Bengals who
come out of the ashes to win out and somehow,
look if the if the Bengals, if it is green
Bay and I don't remember because I'm not looking at
the schedule right now, if it is green Bay that
they have this weekend or next weekend, if they do
manage to go to Green Bay and win that game,
then you have to seriously consider them for the chance

(26:45):
to winning out. Right, they only have a couple of
really tough games on their schedule the remainder of the year.
The rest of them are not. So if they can,
if they can pull victories in those, they've got an
absolute shot of winning out. And if they do win out,
they have an absolute shot of winning the division. So
you know, they're not as much as you'd like to

(27:06):
think they're out of it, they absolutely are not. You know,
unlike our defense, it looks like their defense seem to
have found some stability at least playing the Ravens. They did.
And you know, I don't know, because you know, what
they're saying is absolutely correct. Does this team does the
Steelers team that we're seeing day to day, week to

(27:29):
week this season, look like they want to win anything? Right?
Does it look like they're invested in trying to take
this division? Not really, But you could say that about
the Ravens too.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, I mean, and I know some of theirs. Again,
was beginning of the season. You know, Buffalo the only
team they beat before they're bye week, so they went
one in five. The only team they beat was the Browns,
and they beat on them pretty bad, forty one to seventeen.
They had a close loss close losses, you know, Buffalo, Detroit,
Kansas City actually laid it on them pretty good. Even

(28:02):
the Houston Texans came out of nowhere. At that point,
you were thinking, now there's a team that's really surging.
That's a team that looks like, lookout, stay out of
their way. Everything's clicking, everything's clicking. Now, this is a
runaway training you don't want to get in front of.
That's not what the Steelers look like. And I don't
know that the Steelers have an opportunity now to become
that train. I mean, it would have to turn on
pretty quick. We don't know where it'll turn on. Then

(28:24):
you've got the you've got the issue of I was
trying to find there's a bunch of photos that were
over on the Steelers media site, not a Mason Rudolph.
I was looking for Aaron Rodgers, and I'm pretty sure
here's one right here. I mean, when you've got like
this wrist that's padded up that bad, and you know
he's got three fractures. But although the dude could, I mean,
it wasn't like he could squeeze the football even when

(28:46):
somebody was coming from behind him. That's how Joey Bosa
gets the strip sacked pretty much, right, he doesn't know
he's there and he can't get two hands on the football.
And then you're playing out of the shotgun. And I
was really ragging on this. We're talking about this on
the last show where I was talking about it on
one of the reels.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
When you go in a.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Shotgun and you're eliminating a large portion of your playbook
and you pretty much you know, where do you start
your runs from? On one side of Aaron Rodgers or
on the other. I mean you're and you're starting that
many yards back for a team that already can't run
the football.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
So yeah, that's.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
I don't know, I don't, And I don't know that
Adam Thelen being active. I mean with Calvin Austin and
Roman Wilson could have been part of this game plan
at some point. Where are these damn tight ends at
And you just look all the way around and it
doesn't matter really. I mean, okay, you go and play Mason,
but Mason has a floor too. What's Mason gonna do?
Throw for two hundred yards? He might throw for a

(29:39):
touchdown or two, he might throw for a pick. He's
going to take two or three sacks. More than likely,
he's gonna stand in the pocket more than he's going
to move around, although he could probably move better than
Rogers can at this point. And if you put Will
Howard out there, we don't want this argument. I've talked
against it many times. But he hasn't practiced enough. He
only started practicing in November. He was injured, injured before

(29:59):
even Friday Night Lights, which is the second week of camp,
so nobody even got to see him throw, barely got
to see him throw in person, myself personally, and that
was with guys that aren't on this team. They've long gone.
If they're still playing football, they're going to be in
like the UFL or something in the spring. So just
how does he ever get time to ramp up when
there's no snaps for a quarterback? Three is the emergency guy.

(30:21):
The other guy's got to get hurt. You just can't
betch everyone and say, oh, we'll throw the man. Because
somebody had mentioned that somewhere in one of these comments.
You couldn't do that. You could not do that Sunday,
I understand it end up putting Mason back in to
just finish the very end of the game. Oh give
give Howard that. Well, that's not even quality. That doesn't
help him against like a backup defenders, a shell of
a defense like that doesn't help. You can't evaluate I

(30:43):
don't know that you could evaluate him if you if
you plan to start him Saturday or Sunday. To begin with,
it's five games. You're still at six and six. People
are like, oh, season's long gone now. I'm far from that,
because there's still a chance, even though we're saying there's
no hope. No, don't get me wrong, I don't have
a good feeling about any of this going forward. I
don't believe that they're going to win a division. I

(31:05):
don't believe that they're going to make the postseason. All
I'm saying is that athematically they still have a chance
because the Ravens haven't really shown it either. Okay, and
Lamar's hurts. So Lamar has been playing very poorly over
the last few games. I was going to pull up
his numbers real quick too, Lamar here we go. I said,

(31:26):
no touchdowns, but three interceptions throw one against the Bengals,
two against the Browns, and he didn't even throw for
two hundred yards and those other two games he had
to against Cincinnati because it was just a dogfight.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
Right.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
He has taken nine sacks in the last three games.
He is his best completion percentage is fifty six and
a half. If you actually average it out, it's somewhere
around fifty four and change over those last three games.
And he's attempted twenty five, twenty three and thirty two passes.
So it's not for lack of you. When he's asked
to throw the ball. It's been bad. It's been really bad.

(32:00):
So they have to lean on Derrick Henry against the Steelers.
If they play any type of ball where they control
time of possession, this game's over with that's the way
I feel. So the Steelers are still in this, but
you can't make these drastic changes mathematically. They're in it

(32:21):
until they're not in it. And then, like we said before,
what do you do, like say they win this game,
or say it's close, or say they still have a
chance when they you know later in the season, Like
you're never just going to see Howard unless they're completely
out of it, and Tomlin teams are just never completely
out of it. And some people think, oh well, you
could go in here, just provide this big spark. I

(32:41):
think that's very highly unlikely. It's as unlikely as what
we just said with the Steelers making the postseason, winning
the division, doing all these other things. There's no hope.
There's no reason to believe that a guy that hasn't
been able to participate fully with his teammates and has
been running the scout team practice squad with an opponent's
playboy would turn this whole thing around. So that doesn't

(33:03):
it's more than likely going to be three and outs,
and it's more than likely that's not where the Steelers
are because their defense just can't get off the field.
They can't force these three and outs and the only
thing they can do is hope to force turnovers. So
when I'm looking at these keys of the game, man,
they got to do something other and more creative than
just out of shotgun. But Brian, the only thing that
might be the savior in this game is if the

(33:24):
defense does get their head of their ass. Because the
Baltimore Ravens offensive line has not been good either. No,
they've been really poor this year. So I know, Lamar
has only taken twenty seven sacks just in nine games.
It's about three per average. It's starting to teeter towards
her end. But nine in the last you know, three games,
like I said, three apiece average. You got to get

(33:45):
after them. And if the Steelers defense TJ Watt, Alex Heismith,
Nic Krbick, these guys, they got to get after them.
If they can't get after them, and you just have
these big run lanes that open up for Henry or
you let Lamar run loose, game over and it's probably
season over.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
Yeah, I mean, look it. You know, I'm gonna jump
back to the Will Howard thing. And I've said this
before and I still I still believe this. Right now,
you can't play Will Howard. I agree with you one
hundred percent on that you lose this game, you lose
to the Dolphins, and you lose to the Lions. That's
a different story. Yeah, it's a different story. Now you're
you're you're done at that point. See what you have

(34:23):
because the draft is coming. Is this a guy who
could be capable? Give him the first team snaps starting
that week. Let him play because you know what you
got in Aaron Rodgers. You know what you've got in
Mason Rudolph. You don't know if you have to quarterback.
But I agree with you completely. We're not there yet, No,
not there right. We might actually think we are, but

(34:46):
we really aren't, right because you know, this is the
way this league has played this year on any This
is the definition of on any given Sunday, because at
any given Sunday, you don't know what's going to happen.
The looked like hell last week, then they beat up
the Cowboys, right, you know, it's just back and forth.
You don't know which team is showing up which week.

(35:09):
There's only been a couple teams who have looked consistently
solid all year long.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
I don't want to get off on a tangent, but
just George Pickens and that's all I'll say. Yeah, well,
you know George Pickens resurface last night. Now, how do
we feel about that again? Giving up on plays and whatnot,
so attitude and offensive pass interference, just a really boneheaded
one on the pit. One of the worst pick plays
that I've seen, one of the more obvious ones. It's

(35:34):
just like, you're not going to pick up a flag
for that. But here's the other part. And you said this,
and I just want to be I said, if you
started him today, Will Howard, if you started him Sunday,
it's five games enough to really know who he is
before you go into next year's draft with oodles of picks.
And it's host and it's the host city is Pittsburgh,

(35:55):
and everyone's going to be geeked up. I think they're
taking a quarterback no matter what, if Hill Will Howard
hits the field or not. Will Howard getting hurt was
the worst thing that could have happened to him. And
it's not to say maybe would have played to date,
Maybe he would have had to say to at least
been a backup. Maybe and Andrey and he gets in,
But this is like This is kind of the same stuff.
You know, the people that are the people that are

(36:16):
lobbying for him. He's a sixth round pick and what
was considered a poor draft class, not necessarily just by us,
but by all the scouts. And yeah, Tom Brady's one
in a million. There's been forty some other sixth round picks,
like one hundred and some others. And somebody said, brock
party one good season, and that guy can't stay healthy
and he hasn't been consistent enough. Mac Jones comes in there,

(36:38):
who's stunk in New England and is capable of running
the forty nine ers defense or forty nine ers offense.
That means their offense Kyle Shanahan system. You know, we
saw Sam Darnold and everybody else do decent in there.
I think I saw Nick Mullins do good there in
San Francisco for a game or so. I don't think
five games enough for well Hired. I don't think two
games is enough for will Hired. I think Will Hired's

(36:59):
going to be competing for a job or some time
and next summer. But if they go and they just
draft somebody else, because it's sitting on the board and
they have the capital to doing so he's not gonna
be the first option. There's gonna be pressure. We talked
about this in the last game. We talked about this
with you know, you and I got in the spat
over Mason Rudolph and how he doesn't beat anybody else
out there's just a bug under Mike tomlins ass where

(37:22):
this is the this is the guy that has the
less value on the business end of football. We're not
paying him as much money, we don't have the draft
capital as highly invested in him, the time as highly
invested in this player. And so that's why you're gonna
see Trubisky, That's why you're gonna see Kenny Pickett, Russell
Wilson to a lesser extent, or Justin Fields or somebody

(37:45):
like that too. So they're just trying to see again,
that's something that it's kind of valid too.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
You know, they bring in Justin Fields. Everybody was talking.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
About justin Field, justin Field, justin field. This is the
future of the Pittsburgh Steelers gets benched in New York, right.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
I said, I wanted to keep Justin Fields, but I
never thought he was a future.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
No, No, and I've been pretty dead set against it.
I thought he was, like you just he was a
pretty much an equal to Trubisky, except he had more
running skills. He could maybe bring you something. He'd get
you a first down or rush for a touchdown or something.
He definitely had that element to his game. But the
passing part in the pocket, if he's forced to stay
in there, he was doing okay. He did okay against

(38:25):
the Chargers, and name he did not do so okay
against like the Colts Cowboys. And this isn't like a
crap on Justin Field's session here. This is just to
go to show that everybody's always excited about the next
guy that they don't know. It's like the unknown. It's like, okay,
we've seen what Rogers does.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Uh. Some people are already out on Rudolph and the
people that weren't out on him, they just saw him
go out there and they didn't beat the Bears and
he threw an interception with just having you know, one
series last week, and so they're out on him. And
the people that were already out are really out on him.
They're like, why is he on this team? Play Howard
And I'm just saying that, like Howard. All the odds
are against them statistically, sixth round pick. He could have

(39:01):
been a fifth round pick. He could be a third
round pick. Rudolph was a third round pick. Josh Dobbs
was a fourth round pick. We seen Devil and Hodges,
Duck Hodges go out there undrafted, and you know he
had magic for a couple of games, but they still
they still struggled, and then he struggled, and you know
that's it. That was his only year of football. Landry Jones,
Dennis Dixon. You've seen some of these guys come in
who've had a higher draft pedigree. I know that this guy.

(39:23):
We're Buckeyes fans. Once again, we have to put that
asterisk on it. Right, It's not like we dislike Justin Fields.
Is not like we disliked the person or player. There's
just the reality of the translation to the professional football game,
that lack of development and experience when you've been injured
in not practicing, not being able to be playing. He's
not throwing the DK metcalf if he is throwing any

(39:44):
at practice, right, He's throwing the Keshawn Williams. You know,
he's throwing the Connor Hayward. You know to stop your
tirade for a moment. Yeah, but that's that's the whole point, right,
It's just it's just not the time.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
He's not ready.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
You throw him out there, and I still don't think
five games, four games, three games, two games.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Jackie Hard didn't stop his tirade. I failed. I'm wrapping
it up.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
I just I got to reiterate it because, like I said,
unless it's the two percenters, they don't listen to this,
and they want to force the issue.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
You force the issue. You ruin this player. He's not ready.
Here's where I don't agree with you. I think they
can learn enough from the last two games to know
whether there's a reason to think he has something. I
don't think they'll know. I think they can learn something
from seeing what they get out of him. Right. You
put him in absolute starting positions, You give him the

(40:35):
ability to run the first team reps. When you again,
I'm speculating that the season is over at this point. Right.
Part of that means I don't really care if they
win or lose the game, nor do they They just
want to evaluate does he have anything? Can he read defense?
Can he go off the first read to the second read.

(40:57):
Does he know how to handle his progressions? Can he
understand you know, basic situations. You're not going to know
everything about the guy. I agree with you there, but
you'll know something more than you know right now. And
that's why there's some value in saying, once the season through,
go ahead and give this kid a shot. I'm gonna

(41:17):
be honest with you. I don't think they will regardless. No,
I don't think Will Howard sees the field. Regardless of fact.
I'm pretty sure Will Howard never sees the field. That's
the big one.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
I was going to say, Brian because of that injury too,
and because of where they're at, and because of the
draft coming up and having all of those picks and
it being in Pittsburgh, and they take another guy that
business aspect of the you know, the NFL and the
Steelers and needing that quarterback. You're not going to play
Will Howard who's never played over your first round pick?

(41:51):
Who could be you know, the pro ready guy that
comes out of whatever, sista, whoever that might be. Right,
Let's say it's the guy from Indiana for example.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
You know what I mean to throw this out, You're
never gonna play it over and you're never gonna get him.
You're not going to move up to the draft. You're not.
But you know, look, if we lose out, Let's say
we lose out, all of a sudden, we got a
top ten pick. All right, that's a little different story.
Now you maybe do you do have some flexibility to
move around and figure out what you're gonna do. I'm
going to operate on the assumption that we're still going

(42:20):
to be in the teams, okay, And if we're in
the teams, I don't even know if this draft class
is valid valid for them as as a quarterback class,
it's still not as good as everybody was expecting it
was going to be. There's maybe two guys, maybe three,
and they could all go in the top ten, in
which case you're on the outside looking in. Again. I

(42:41):
know they got a lot of picks, but you know
what else I know about this team, They got a
lot of damn problems.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
That's also true. Yeah, And I mean, and where do
you even start with that they might need all of
those picks, and what's that mean? I'm gonna throw this
out here. I know this has nothing to do with
the Ravens. It should be talking about Mark Andrews and
Isaiah Likely in guarding these guys, and I think we're
very familiar with these players, and I think we just
pretty much said whether there needs to be because there's
just so much, so little, there's so much that's been

(43:09):
a problem, and so much that's so little hope that
if they can't just get off the damn field and
for some three and outs, and I mean they have
to do turnovers and they have to score off of
these turnovers, that's going to be the whole key.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
That's the key of the game.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
Now, bouncing back as far as you know, the draft
or anything like that goes and the team having enough problems.
I've seen people I've seen where was it at It
was somebody that was talking about signing to Rod Taylor,
trading for Anthony Richardson. Look, if they wanted Taylor, they
could have had him like a dozen times over. That
guy's bounce around everywhere in the league. They're not interested, Okay,

(43:42):
not interested there. The Taylor's not a fit. The only
way Taylor's a fit was if they had a guy
like a Richard's and you have to emulate and have
to keep the same playbook between your backup and your starter.
Is what the New York Jets just did with Justin Fields, right,
And that's the way that some of the people in
the media look at this. They immediately go, well, that's
Mike Tomlins prefer he's going to go after like an
Anthony Richardson. The thing that I heard earlier this year

(44:03):
out of a Mike Tomlin press conference, and when he
was talking about the Colts and he was talking about
I think Brooke Pryor asked this for ESPN because Flacco
was playing for the Bengals now and he talked about
Flacco playing with the Colts, and he had made some
comment and it was a it was actually a very
short stick type comment on Anthony Richardson, of which it

(44:25):
was a completely different quarterback, and we knew that Joe's
game was a lot different. That told me all I
needed to know about what Mike Tomlin thinks if he's
still here in evaluating Anthony Richardson, and that's he will
not be in a Steeler's uniform unless the dude was
strictly a backup.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
He would have to be a backup.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
The problem is you sign a guy like that the
same way they traded or betrayed at this point, right,
they traded for Justin Fields. People think that that's going
to be the starter, particularly when you had the injury
to Russell Wilson and the media got it all wrong.
So that's like a gigantic mess. Let's not think about that.
There's still five games to go. I just think that
that's like a terrible path. I think the only way

(45:03):
you get out of this. There isn't anybody that's going
to be available in free agency or available via trade
that's going to give you any different results than what
you've been seeing over the last few seasons. It's going
to have to be done in the draft, and even
in the draft, it's a gamble. The highest failure rate
is for quarterbacks. The deeper they go in the draft,
the higher the failure rate, unless somebody completely misevaluates the player,

(45:24):
which was the case of Tom Brady. A couple other
guys squeak in every now and then, but then they
show their true colors. Matt Shop is when it comes
to mind, and I think he was still like a
third round pick, so just and he sat for several
years too before he plays.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
This is just the reality of where we are. They've
tried the signing veteran quarterbacks for the last two seasons
didn't work, maybe even for the last three seasons. If
you could add Trubisky into that. They've tried that path
hasn't worked. It's not going to work right because the
guys that you can get in free agency are not
going to be guys that are going to be able

(46:00):
to lead you to the promised plan. We are in.
We are in that no man's land of we need
the next franchise quarterback. The place they're going to find
that is in the draft, and it is no guarantee
they're going to hit on it the first time they tried,
which they already did with hit and miss on Kny Pickett.
The next one may be the same thing. All you
have to do is go back, like you know, the

(46:23):
to the doldrums of the eighties, and no. I can
draft quarterback after quarterback after quarterback after quarterback. Maybe some
of them will be exciting, maybe some of them will
give you a cordel, or maybe some of them will
give you a little fun like Bubby Brister, or or
they could all be crap.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
Yeah, it's tough to say, and I say I was
joking with somebody, It's like one of those you look
at the map and it says you are currently here
and right now you're in the same period of Tom
Zack Kn't Graham, Cordell Stewart. Cordell is a second round
pick and we'll forget Cordelli playing quarterback initially either at
I think Cordell's ahead of his time. It's a different game,

(47:05):
and I agree with you completely. Nobody knew how to
handle Cordell.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Do I think he had the same exact skill set
as a Lamar Jackson. No, but Labar's a better runner unner.
But you know, Cordell had his issues with throwing the
ball to He wasn't that great at reading defenses. He
had his own liabilities, right, Yeah, but nobody knew how
to handle that kind of a quarterback at that time.
The NFL wasn't schemed for it, and Bill Kauer certainly

(47:31):
didn't know what do I do with this guy. They
did the best they could. That's why he was slash right.
They put him all over the place and they did
whatever they could to try and make it work, and
it almost did. Right, We had some successful seasons with
that guy. You know, so you look at that and go,
would you take that? Here's the thing, would you take that?

(47:51):
Or is it they got to win super Bowls?

Speaker 2 (47:54):
I pose that question on social media about whether you
would want ten years of making the playoffs guaranteed or
one Super Bowl ring or trophy? Which would you take
out of that? And I think I would still take
the super Bowl. But you got to remember you're gonna
have some like four or five win games or seasons
mixed in there. I wanted to throw in something else

(48:16):
that was real quick because I was thinking about that
Dobbs draft and you made some comments about, you know,
the next quarterback draft class, about you just never know,
and you got Mitch Trubisky at the top of that class.
In twenty seventeen, Patrick Maumes, who the Chiefs go up
and get at ten? Nobody thought much of then, And boy,
you know.

Speaker 3 (48:35):
With that that nobody thought much about that he was
going to be first, had a lot of hype.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
He had the you know, and he bounced a round.
He changed colleges too, right, So there was always that question.
It's kind of the thing that sticks with Will Howard,
except Will Howard wasn't thought to be a first round pick.
You know, Mahomes a generation athlete. There were things like
that that were definitely But did you see Mahomes going
ahead of to Sean Watson necessarily in that draft. I
don't know that people saw that. I don't know they
saw him going to Kansas City. I don't know that
people saw Mahomes going at ten, you know, first round.

(49:03):
Absolutely if he went at like twenty three or whatever.
So you had Watson at twelve. Those were the three
first round picks Cleveland takes to Sean Kaiser at fifty
two just goes to show you just then you got
Davis Webb third round, c J. Bethard, third round, Josh
Dobbs fourth round pick one thirty five, Nathan Peterman Pittsburgh
Panthers fans. You definitely remember. I think he's still hanging

(49:25):
around a sixth round pick, Brad Kaya. Where was Kaya
out of Miami, Florida, That's right? And then Chad Kelly,
who may have been mister irrelevant or very close to it,
to the Denver Broncos at two fifty three. This is again,
this is that we can go very much deeper into
this into the offseason. It was just a matter of
not Howard yet, and I hope I don't have to

(49:46):
keep talking about this for the next month of football.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
It's gonna be tiring.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Probably will because Rogers has a bomb hand. We don't
expect a whole lot with him throwing the football. The
Steelers can't run the football of Mason. Isn't the guy
that's been getting the same thing with Mason. You don't
give him the full week and make him the guy
and he just throw him out there. It's the same
deer in headlights. So that's where I agree with you
with Howard. I'll say this, I don't want to forget it.
If they throw Howard out there and it is deer

(50:10):
in headlights, then it's kind of like, well, yeah, this
is not going to be good. So I do agree
with you on that if he shows some semblance of
being a leader and being able to have some kind
of control, regardless of what the production is, because he's
probably gonna go out there and throw two picks, no
touchdowns or something like that, right, complete fifty five percent
of his passes. That's what I'm expecting to see, and
then there might be some maturity and growth and you

(50:31):
get those jitters out. Maybe maybe he's better going forward,
but if he goes out there and he's just completely incapable,
and we've seen it. I mean, the guy that keeps
coming into my mind is Skyler Thompson, and I know
he's on this roster on IR right now, but very
similar boat. I think it was a fifth round pick
by the Dolphins and he came in for two attag
of bloa and you know, he had a couple of

(50:52):
highlights and then he had a bunch of low lights.
But we went out there in the preseason, he just
lit it up. And then you're expecting, well, keep this
guy and he might be Hey, he might still be
on as he might be the backup next year. You
never know, but that's the kind of career path he's
not in Miami anymore. That's what I expect of.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
Like those day three pins people, people get over excited
about guys who light it up against JV opponents. I'm sorry,
v JV. Against JV, you got a guy who's got
NFL experience playing against a bunch of guys who have none,
and all of a sudden he lights it up. Oh wow,
big surprise. You know it is what it is? I
think you know you're stuck with the concept right now

(51:31):
that you've got You've got an offense where receivers can't
get separation and can't get open. The tight ends are
not used effectively, and they can't get open. There's a
terrorized view of throwing over the middle of the field.
You've got an offense that is inadequate. They can't run
the ball, they can't throw the ball because they can't
get anybody open. They don't know how to scheme to
get guys open. So that's just a complete cluster. I mean,

(51:56):
I already dropped one F bomb this this show, so
I'm not going to drop another one. But thank you,
I don't have to go out and send you edit
the second one out.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
I think about editing a lot of the show, to
be honest, I've been spicy today, a little spicier than usual.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
So but I'm going to tell you the you know,
you distracted me and that my train of thought went
off the rails. But what I guess I'm getting at
is I don't expect anybody on this roster to come
out and perform well in this offense. I think that
they will all look mediocre at best, and really crappy

(52:29):
at worst. What I do think you can get out
of playing Will Howard once once or if let me,
I'll try and remain and retain some level of optimism
if the season actually is over and you know you're
mathematically elimited and you have absolutely no shot of a
playoff spot or anything else. If we get to that point,

(52:51):
What I do think you get out of giving Will
Howard first team reps for a couple of weeks and
some some on the on the field looks. You just
get enough sense of is there anything there? You're never
going to know if he's really good in that limited
span of time, I agree with you, but you can
get a sense of do we have something there to

(53:12):
work with or don't we?

Speaker 2 (53:14):
I know, because you had, I mean, Rudolph had the
run with the playoff to get to the playoffs. Look good, right,
you had Kenny Pickett came in for Trubisky, looked a
little decent here there. It looked like you had some
promise and you were like, well, you got to give
him a longer leash, give him some more rope.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
You know. The funny thing. Let's talk about Picket for
a second. Yeah, because we talked about this at nauseum,
and I even got to the point where I said,
I don't know, maybe this kid has something, but that's
the problem. He would look like absolute crap for three quarters.
Then he'd have a drive at the end of the
game that would be a game winning drive and you'd go, wow,
magic and forget that. He looked like absolute direk and

(53:54):
trash the rest of the game, and that was that
was the story of Kenny Pickett. He'd have one good
drive a game and you'd love it, and sometimes that
would win you the game because the defense was still
solid enough to keep the games close. Yep. But he
was absolutely not a good quarterback.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Yeah, and again, I don't want to tackle on fifteen
more minutes to the show and talk about Ben. There's
gonna be a lot of time to talk about that
and quarterback into the offseason. But the people would say
bring in Big Ben once again. First round pick, top
high high, highly selected, guy thought to be the franchise
eventually will be. They wanted to sit him and just
let red shirt him, and it didn't work because of

(54:33):
the injuries. He goes out there. He still makes a
lot of mistakes. He's thrown some interceptance through three seasons.
I mean, he had like twenty five interceptions or something
in year three, and he took a lot of sacks,
and people are like, is this guy gonna last? You
know what I mean? But that first year was defense, defense, defense,
And even with Canny Pickett, they were giving up thirteen
points a game, sixteen points a game. Not like, what

(54:54):
where are we at?

Speaker 3 (54:55):
Now?

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Hold on a second, I had it on here points
per game the Pittsburgh Steelers are allowing. They're actually in
the middle of the pack. They're twentieth and the Ravens
are actually raped behind these fractional point things, right, twenty
four point one and twenty four point four. Uh, the
Steelers are scoring twenty three point four and the Ravens
are scoring twenty four point one. Again, that's middle of

(55:17):
the pack type of stuff. The problem is those are averages.
One week, the Steelers' offense is scoring thirty points, but
the defense is is giving up thirty one and they lose.
So you can't have that. It's the you know what
I mean, It's like then one week, the one week
the we thought last week's game was going to end
up being like nine to six for a final score
at halftime. The way it was working out like, it

(55:39):
didn't look like either of those teams. Buffalo's in trouble too.
I hate to say it, but at least you know
Buffalo has the quarterback, and you know they have They've
been there. The Steelers have not been.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
The other point I'm gonna get to, yeah, they have.
We everybody's Baltimore has their quarterback. Yes, Buffalo has their quarterback, yes.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Right, And they've been there, and they've been an AFC
tie games, They've been.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
In games, but they haven't won anything. They could all
be Dan Marino, they could be some of the best
quarterbacks of their generation, but never win a Super Bowl,
never get to the big dance, right because they happened
to play at a time when you've got a team
with an unbelievable defense in the Eagles, who happened to
be able to ride that. You've got Patrick Mahomes and

(56:22):
the Kansas City team that was unstoppable to a certain
extent up to a point. Right, you know, who knows
whether the next thing is God forbid please watch my
mouth out was so are the Patriots going to suddenly
become resurgent? And is Drake may the.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
Guy no never know, right, Yeah, nobody thought much of
him coming out of that draft either, and they were
very shocked that the Patriots took him, and that was
kind of how about Watson maybe making a comeback, maybe
in time to play the Steelers too, So he's a
Sean Watson. Yeah, Watson's getting put into that twenty one
day window or whatever return into practice.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
So if the Browns put Deshaun Watson on the field
ever again, then they're just moronic.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
It's just and it took two quarterbacks and I don't
know that in the turmoil. And this is not again
I love the rag on the Cleveland Browns, but this
isn't ragging on the Cleveland Browns. This is just peeking
into NFL teams and how they operate. You just don't
put on the Steelers jersey and it's Superman's cape, I
gotta tell you that. So the way that they're going

(57:25):
about Dylan Gabriel and Shador Sanders and how dysfunctional their
offense is is and both those guys were drafted ahead
of Will Howard too. And I'm not saying that the
Browns have better evaluators or anything like that, but just
into context of playing in the pros. Those guys aren't
enough to overcome the other problems that Cleveland has, and
Cleveland hasn't really given either one of them enough of

(57:45):
a look and out there bring Watson into this mix,
what did they do next year? It's not like you're
gonna be like, well, Sanders the answer, he's shown enough
we could ride with him. And I doubt that even
if Howard does that the Steelers, there's gonna be a
amount of pressure, a mets amount of pressure to get
a quarter back next year. Rooney will be on it again.
And Rooney even this past season before the draft, had said,
if they take anyone outside of like the first couple

(58:07):
of rounds, that player is not going to see the
field this year. And some of this is coming from
the owner. And you've got to justify when you are
the coach in a GM who signs a check, You've
got to justify these things to that guy. And so
some people will say, and I know there's a lot
of Pittsburgh Pirates fans and they know Bob Nutting, and
I know that they you know the Pirates don't. It's

(58:28):
a different game. And the non salary cap, the way
baseball ends up running. It's not the same thing, so
please don't put that in the same category. But ownership
has something to play with this too. I think Omar
Khan has been able to build enough of good rosters.
I think he's made a lot of trades. I think
he's done a lot of things that were very Unsteeler,

(58:49):
like from Kevin Colbert, who would just constantly build from within.
Whether or not that's been working can be of debate.
We've got one. We've got one, big, one, big game
this day, one big one, Brian, Let's see if they
change all of our minds. Is your bobblehead even coming
out to make a prediction.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
For this one? Everybody says no, I just like you
could go, I don't think they win. Doesn't look this
guy back here, the Steelers elf on a shelf, back here,
and Stealers elf on a shelf. He says, they lose.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Yeah, So all right, my friend.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
But the bigger question, bigger question for the two percenters
who are also Buckeye fans, what's gonna happen in that game.
We're gonna beat Indiana.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
We're gonna lose Indiana home game in Indianapolis. How I know,
is there an apathy to the fans that have seen
national title games and used to making the trip to
Lucas Oil for a college game? Are they going to
show up for this or are they just going to
get drowned out by hungry Indiana fans who haven't seen
this football team do anything like this and its entire

(59:56):
history pretty much?

Speaker 3 (59:58):
I wonder. I don't think Buckeye fans ever get worn out,
over worn out of it? No, No, definitely are most entitled
in spoiled though, because when it happened with Ryan Day
last year and they were ready to fire him, it
was all the same comments you hear about Mike Tomlin,
and not that this is a Buckeye show.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
But he loses the Michigan they still make the CFP
and then run the table and then it's like, oh,
we love you again. So, Mike Tomlin, you're not listening
to this, but if you are, go look at Ryan
Day and make a miraculous turnaround and you'll be back
into good graces of Steelers Nation. So folks, that'll do
it for us. Thanks again for watching or listening wherever

(01:00:35):
you may be. Don't forget the like, comment and subscribe,
my name is Joe and his name is Brian. Brian,
thanks for joining me once again, my friend. And yeah,
so that's what we have to look forward to, maybe
a little more than some other folks that only have
the Steelers. And then you know my other teams out
my FCS team, the Youngstown blew it big time, so
can't look forward to that this weekend either. So Steelers,

(01:00:58):
you got to do something. It's the meme with the
guy with the stick. Go out there, do something. Gets
these Baltimore Ravens one o'clock Sunday m ANDT Banks Stadium
till then till next time. We encourage everyone out there
to be safe, be good, and we'll catch you later.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
We would liked it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Thank you for listening, and remind our listeners to follow
us on social media and our website www dot steel
City Underground dot com

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