Does Aaron Rodgers have a better supporting cast in Pittsburgh?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Underground, The steel City Underground, the black
and gold standard for Pittsburgh Steelers coverage.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Now here's your hoes.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Joe Kuzma and Brian E.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Rose.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Steel
City Underground podcast. My name is Joe Kuzma, and we
are back at you after somewhat of a week off.
And what a week it's been because last time I
was here, I had to cover the Aaron Rodgers signing
with the Pittsburgh Steelers story all by my lonesome sou

(00:40):
that is no longer the case, as my colleague Palell
a partner in crime a one, mister Briany Roach is
here you. I don't know Shaff's thoughts. Maybe drink your tears.
I don't know, Brian.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
How's it's going? Man? Well, I you know, the best
thing I can do is show the same image that
I sent you yesterday, which you know, it's Father's Day
for and Happy Father's Day to everybody who is a father,
and if you're not, that's okay too. But my daughter

(01:15):
wrote this on her Father's Day card, oh, which I
don't know. There we go, there we go? All right,
Now we can see it. It said Happy Father's Day, Dad,
I love you so much. PS. Aaron Rodgers sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I thought I thought you were going to put up
the barf emoji. Let's okay, let's just meddle like rate here,
because my original plan was eventually get a dragon out
of hiding. I was looking for a flash. Zach Cledonia.
He's he's very much so in the camp of I
like Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers is improving the team. Aaron
Rodgers gives you a spot. All this and that. I

(01:54):
can't wait to have him one, just to have another
another viewpoint. But you know, Brian, for years we were
accused of just being all sunshine and rainbows when it
came to the Steelers organization, and really the first like
thing that tried me as being I don't like being negative.
Football's community. Very few bad things to say about anybody

(02:15):
unless they do something dumb, you know, or somebody plays bad.
There's fair criticism, right, But I'm not necessarly gonna come
out and be like, oh, this guy sucks, this guy's bad.
I don't want to like, you know, stuff like that.
I try to keep it analytical. I try to keep
it professional. I try to keep a business like like
I try to think of it of like if Aaron
Rodgers were listening to this, wou do you laugh at it?

(02:37):
What do you think these guys are clowns? Would he
actually entertain being like on the show things of that nature?
You know, you don't want it to ever come back
around by you in the ass. But the first thing
that really tried me was Ben retires and the Steelers
signed Mitchell Trubisky, and I was just so adamantly against it.
I didn't like it, but I still tried to tried

(02:59):
to find some pause until he actually started playing. It
wasn't just like this whole well, hey see, I told
you so, gotcha? I was right trying to write fight
improve my point of view, and I find myself here
again multiple multiple ways because I was very cautiously optimistic.
With Russell Wilson, I kind of gave Justin Fields the
same Mitch Trubisky treatment. Kenny Pickett was the unknown, and

(03:21):
I've always been in Mason Rudolph's corner, although still unknown
as to what he may have been able to do
or whatever. So with Aaron Rodgers, I just see him
as an aged player that his best time might be
behind him, and I'm not sure that he offers a
whole lot more for the Steelers. He could, he may not.

(03:43):
It may just be in the middle. So I just
try and see it. But this is a guy that
took a Super Bowl away from the Steelers, you know,
like fifteen years ago. Really hard to kind of get
in his corner, especially when we're like, hey, what have
you done since then? And we've talked about this so
many times talking about other quarterbacks. It makes your gag
a little bit. But as we said, is he a diva? Yeah,

(04:05):
but now he's your diva. Now he's got your you
got the uniform of your team on. So I will
support him. I'm not trying to just drag him down.
But at the same time, I'm not out here, you know,
like cheerleading rab raw and super excited over his signings.
So you weren't on last week. I got to do
a whole show talking about it. Your first initial thoughts

(04:27):
because we continue to He's the gift that keeps keeps
on giving. He's the best things on Antonio Brown who
keeps on giving. Another way going to go be arrested
for murder, okay, or attempted murder, alleged attempted How do.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
I feel about it? Well, I've said all along. I
I feel like every game this season, after the game
is over, I'm gonna have to take a shower because
I'm gonna feel dirty. But you know, do I think
Aaron Rodgers makes the Steelers a better team? I think
he probably improves the quarterback play from what we've seen
over the past number of seasons since been retired. Do

(05:06):
I think he's gonna be a savior? Of course not.
I don't think that at all. Do I think that
there's a chance he's worse this year than he was
last year? Of course, I mean he's aging and father time,
as we know, catches up to all of us. Could
he be better? There's this outside chance that he could be.

(05:28):
Because he was still recovering from the Achilles injury last year,
he said he felt good. By the end of the year,
he says he feels fine. Now. Look, Will I will
give him credit for making all the right noises now
that he's here saying all the right things, like he
wants to, you know, pass knowledge on to guys like
Will Howard, that he's all in all of that stuff

(05:50):
sounds good. You know, so I will give him the
benefit of the doubt. Will I be happy that he's
here right away? I just won't. I can't be.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
You're not going out and buying a number eight jersey, then.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
There will be no number eight jersey. Ever he can
get us to Super Bowl and win, I'm still not
buying his jersey at that point. I could maybe get
a helmet, but you know that's I'm not wearing his
jersey on my back.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Well, my friend, I'm in the same camp I had somebody.
Somebody got me my Russell Wilson jersey. I wasn't even
gonna buy one from China because I didn't have the
best feeling that he was going to be around for
a very long time. The reason I have a Roodolph
one is he started playing in twenty nineteen. Ben was
out for the season. He's a guy that's in his

(06:47):
second year. He was still kind of new. It's high hopes.
It's like am like a cockroach. He keeps coming back
to You can't get rid of him. So I've gotten
more than my fare well. You want to say, juice
my squeeze out of a Mason Rudolph jersey, But that's
for another time another place. I'm not running out to
get a number eight. It's always he says the right things,

(07:08):
right now, what's this look like when he's out there
and La Trobe probably still the right things. What happens
when it's week five and maybe the Steelers start the
season like one in four or one in three or
something like that, and there's a lot of pressure to perform.
And the way we're looking at it is he's a
year older. A lot of people still say, well, he's

(07:28):
got to sing on the ball. He has a high
completion percentage around the line of scrimmage. Arthur Smith's offense
is going to be you know, is it gonna be
tailored to Aaron Rodgers or is Aaron Rodgers gonna bring
his own brand of whatever? Are they going to rely
on him to throw the ball five hundred and fifty
six hundred times whatever numbers he had last year? And
that's kind of where I'm at is because when you

(07:51):
even extrapolate the numbers for somebody like Russell Wilson, Russell
Wilson was only off by like a touchdown and a
pick or two in either direction of Aaron rodgersnumbers last year. Now,
Rodgers would have thrown for more a little bit actually,
and not even that for that many yards. I think
I have the numbers. I'll find them. Of Course, Wilson
didn't play a full season, so you have to do projected.
He could have had a really good game in there

(08:12):
that throws off the mean, or he could have had
really bad games to throw off the mean. The only
fact for sure is he took way more sacks. Now,
Rodgers took some sacks last year behind what I think
is probably a better Jets offensive line in twenty twenty four,
and we're going to be comparing these position groups from
last year's twenty twenty four New York Jets do this

(08:33):
year's twenty twenty five Pittsburgh Steelers. And I caught some
flak for some of this, and we've mentioned some of
it over past shows, but maybe not this in depth, right,
the flack being a lot of this for the Steelers,
we have a little less statistics or a little less
of the known to go with. Right, you get somebody
like a Jalen Warren who hasn't been a starting running

(08:55):
back in the NFL for as long as the Breise
Hall has with the Jets, it's kind of hard to
put them right side by side and go, oh, hey,
you know what, this guy that has half as many
carries is going to be just as good as the
guy that's proven he could do it with twice as many.
And that's where the offensive line is if we want
to start somewhere. Of the Steelers still trying to bandage
an offensive lineup from the days of Big Ben Roethlisberger,

(09:20):
maybe finally found a good center in Zach Fraser last
year out of West Virginia. The rest of it, you
got Isaac Samalo. He kind of slides into his first
Pro Bowl, gets some recognition. We tend to think he's
maybe one of the better players, right, but when you
do the math, and I know, the only thing we
could go by with offensive lineman, unfortunately is the FF

(09:42):
Pro Football Focus. We got to go by their scores, yeah,
because that's all we really have. We don't have static.
Can't say, you know, Zach Fraser, you know he plowed
the way for forty rushing touchdowns or something, Unless you
have that and he could be like, wow, their run
offense is one of the best in the league, like
the Browns were a few years go with Nick Chubb.
Most of the players on the Steelers are were not

(10:06):
highly thought of last year and they shouldn't have been.
The line was kind of still a mess as you had.
He had a rookie and Mason McCormick from South Dakota State, Yeah,
Proderck Jones playing out of position, Troy Fluatan who not
really getting on the field other than one game where
he was like co starting with Jones if you remember,
Jones got penalized like three was it three straight plays
against the Broncos and then got like that, yeah, yeah,

(10:27):
and then Fatan who goes out for the season, and
Fatano for that one game graded a sixty four point four.
But there was only one of the Steelers guys from
last year between Zach Frasier I say Malo, Mason McCormick,
and Broderick Jones that actually graded higher. Are graded above
a seventy overall and it was seventy six point eight.
Sixth at his position was Zach Fraser say Malow was

(10:49):
even a sixty seven point six. He's thirty eighth. Mason
McCormick a fifty seven point seven eighty seventh percentile or
eighty seven percent with the guards Broderick Jones was eighty
ninth the fifty eight point five, and you compare that
to okay, Joe Tipman just a little bit lower, he
was ninth. He was three spots lower a couple percentage
points at seventy three point four than Zach Fraser. As

(11:11):
Aaron Rodgers center with the Jets last year, Elijah Vera
Tucker seventy seven point seven, higher than anybody on the Steelers.
He was fifteenth, John Simpson seventy seven point three, sixteenth,
Tyron Smith, you know, an older veteran, as is Morgan Moses.
But Tyron Smith last year seventy three point seven, he
was thirtieth. Morgan Moses was actually a sixty three point three,

(11:31):
sixty fourth, but still I think the Steelers would have
taken him over even Broderck Jones. So rate, when we're
talking about this, there's a lot of potential, there's a
lot of hope with a young offensive line that they
could get this done. But when Aaron Aaron Jones, when
Aaron Rodgers is already getting sacked forty times behind a

(11:52):
better line, is that on Aaron Rodgers? Is that on
the Jets offense? Or is that on like the offensive line,
and it's gonna be a big question mark right now.
I'm gonna say he a had better personnel with the Jets,
and I don't know that that helps a to be
forty two year old quarterback.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah. One of the things you said early on is
one of the things that that's just gonna be hard
to analyze here, which is the unknown the known unknowns. Right,
we don't know what the Steelers offensive line is going
to gel and look like this season. Right, it isn't
the exact same pieces as last season. But because of that,
and because you have at least some measurables for people,

(12:30):
whether they were playing out of position, what have you,
you know that their offensive line graded higher than our
offensive line last season. Does our offensive line have a
chance to be better? Sure, you got a returning first
round pick that is going to take over on one side,
but you now you have a bigger unknown with Broderick
Jones going to the left where he hasn't played at

(12:51):
a professional level really, so you don't know what that's
gonna look like. So yeah, you'd have to give the
nod to the Jets there, and the Jets had a
better essentially position group on the offensive line than the
Steelers do right now.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, that's where I'm at. Also, I wanted to rewind
one thing that I thought was kind of important to
bring up about last year. Usually we're talking about, Hey,
Mike Tomlin sees so and so on the sidelines, and
he's really enamored with this player, and then that's the
player you see maybe perform well against st You got

(13:29):
to see it. You got to scout them, you got
to do your homework on them all week. And then
they come into Pittsburgh and they make you look like fools,
and you're like, I wish that guy was in a
Steelers jersey. Did you ever have that impression last year
when the Steelers faced the Jets with Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
In the lineup, I didn't they tore them up? Yeah,
did not have that impression.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
No, with a better line, and he's gonna have to
play against defenses very similar to Pittsburgh's defenses, except for
the Bengals. I don't know what they've got. They got
rid of Jermaine Pratt. Now they don't have any edge
rushers currently. Well, one's under contract that wants a new one,
one's a rookie that doesn't hasn't signed. So but the
other with the Ravens and the Browns, and they're gonna

(14:10):
get after Aaron Rodgers. So, uh, just some numbers from
that Aaron Rodgers game. It was a thirty seven to
fifth or yeah, thirty seven to fifteen Sunday night games
slacking in Pittsburgh, and mister Rogers came out twenty four
to thirty nine for two hundred and seventy six yards,
a touchdown, two interceptions, both to an undrafted rookie slot

(14:33):
corner Beanie Bishop, and he got sacked the one time
he had a seventy quarterback rating. He didn't rush for anything.
He also didn't fumble. They bottled up everybody else too.
As far as Brice Hall, he only had thirty eight
yards rushing, et cetera. He only took the one sack
though Rogers did so Yeah, it wasn't you know, not

(14:53):
even Uh. He edged out Russell Wilson, who went sixteen
to twenty nine for two sixty four, two touchdowns, no picks,
took one sec. And that was the second start for Wilson.
I believe Wilson had the Giants right before there was
like those back to back New York games that were
right in there. So, but are you expecting much more
than what Russell Wilson did? And you know, I know

(15:14):
it's just one game, but it's like I wasn't very
impressed last year, and like you said, Father times undefeated,
I just I don't see it. Like when you have
a younger player and they get a few more years
and you're like, okay, yeah, Like like justin Fields, for example,
it's like, Okay, it's gonna he's gonna develop. We got
time to develop him and everything like this, Aaron Rodgers

(15:34):
is not only cooked, he could be overcooked and he's
been over developed. And then it's like to go the
other way. So you just have it and you got
the peak and you're back down into the valley. True,
I just wasn't I wasn't impressed with that game.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
So now I look it. Do I think he's he
has the potential to provide more stability and better play
than we saw at the position overall last year? Yes?
Do I think it makes a difference in the grand
scheme of things. No, do I think he's good enough

(16:11):
to get them over the hump and win a playoff games. No?
Do I think he's gonna pertain to the super Bowl. No,
I don't think any of those things are true, you know,
but there is because there are so many unknowns, and
we'll get to it as we talk to the other
position groups. There are so many unknowns that there are.
There's enough potentiality there to say, Okay, they could actually

(16:35):
be a better team with him than they were last year.
If all these position groups play up to or above
their projected you know, abilities, we'll see.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yeah, potentiality. I like that one.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
It's a word. I made it up. I like to
make up words.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Like there's a lot of potentiality of when you're talking
about Pittsburgh, some people like they think that potentiality is
that Aaron Rodgers comes in and he does all these
things for the Steelers, and it certainly built into his contract.
Playoff win, visional win, you know, Conference championship, super Bowl,
he's getting any you know, a few hundred thousand dollars
up to I think I got a million or two

(17:17):
if he brings the prize home.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
If he does, you won't hear me say any other
bad things. He'll be my best friend from here on out.
But it's not my expectation whatsoever, I won't.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
I look, this is this is the show where I
get it all back off of my chest. And then
moving forward, I'm just I'm I'm not a Stan. I'm
not gonna be an Aaron Rodgers stan. I'm probably not
even gonna be an Aaron Rodgers fan, but I will
support him moving forward. This is my chance to just go.
I'm still annoyed by this and I didn't want him here,

(17:49):
and I don't want him here right now. But that
being said, once we get past this show, I'll have
only legitimate criticisms to make based on what I see,
not not just whining.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
I'm still gonna have to wait until we legitimately see anything.
We're still like a month off from that. Well, I
will try.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
And if he wins the super Bowl, look I'll just go, hey,
didn't think it was gonna happen. Glad it did. Thank
you for your service. Please leave now, and.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
That's all right. We'll be right back, same bat time,
same bat channel, like we would say, and right back
in the same boat maybe you know, going over the
over the waterfall, but back to some of the position
groups too, not just to be smirch. Aaron Rodgers because
I gotta have fun doing that all day long. If

(18:41):
he does help the young guys, if he does help
like a Mason Rootol for I mean Mason to me,
you know what Mason's gonna end up doing, if he's
got the aptitude for it, he's gonna be a coach.
Look at some of these guys like Kellen Moore and
then you know they play behind, they become coordinators. There
have been back up Ken Dorsey, You've seen him around.
You know all the names, Frank Reich, they've all been
like backup quarterbacks in the league, Doug Peterson another one.

(19:03):
Backup quarterbacks in the league. And they end up playing
behind or either playing behind like some really good quarterbacks,
or they end up playing for some really good coaches
or both, and you have you know, I know Mason
only had the one year off out of Pittsburgh, but
he played behind Ben all those years. He's been with
Mike Tomlin all those years. Now he's gonna have Aaron
Rodgers here, like I could see him becoming a coach,

(19:26):
no joke. I'm like some of the knowledge has to stick.
Maybe so, but for Will Howard, hopefully there's some things
he can glean off it and hopefully mister Rodgers is
in a jerk and it just kind of realizes this
is kind of one of his last raws. Apparently he
said he wanted to play in Pittsburgh or nowhere else.
I don't know that. I buy that. I told you
a million times. I still think that Minnesota was, you know,

(19:50):
appealing to him. Anywhere else he might not have had
any other offers. I mean, look what he signed for
thirteen million dollars and obviously we haven't even mentioned that
there's no there's no room for there because they didn't
throw thirty five to forty million dollars at the dude
multiple years at him or anything like that. So they
were talking about this actually on one of the radio shows,
like who else would you have thought? Everybody's like, oh,

(20:11):
I don't know, my faith and no more Kahn is
completely gone. Who else do you know that would have
signed Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, and Aaron Rodgers over the
course of the last two seasons for less than twenty
million dollars combined a combined total, a combined tab for
all three of those quarterbacks. That's some good general managing work.
If I would say so, so let's get back. We're

(20:34):
gonna look at some of the skill positions. Or I
was talking Jalen Warren a little bit against Brece Hall,
and it's a tough one because I'd written some of
these down in an article that was published last week
and somebody said, oh man, you've got BREECEE Hall completely
wrong on this, and I'm like, well, Breesol has his volume.
He is almost three thousand yards from scrimmage in three years,

(20:56):
five hundred and sixty five touches. It's almost a thousand
yards more than Jalen Warrens had. But Warren's only had
three hundred and sixty eight touches, two hundred fewer touches,
thousand more yards production for Hall, Warrens had to battle
some injuries. He's also fumbled the ball some. All has
seventeen touchdowns in his career. Warren has five. We don't

(21:19):
know anything about Caleb Johnson and I Gainwell and Corderol
Patterson are pretty much special teams type guys right now.
As far as I see them. You might get them
in for a carrier two. But it's not somebody you're
gonna lean on. It's either gonna be Warren, it's gonna
be Johnson. We don't know anything about Caleb Johnson coming
out of the rookie out of Iowa right now.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Now.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
The Jets, they had a rookie last year, Braylyn Allen
carried the ball ninety two times for three hundred and
thirty four yards two touchdowns, and he had another one
hundred and forty eight receiving yards with the score. So
those are some kind of concrete numbers. It's still more
than what Gainwell did with the Eagles, But I mean,
Saquan just got everything and he was there. So with

(22:01):
Nijie Harris being the bell cow during most of Warren's time,
kind of difficult for me to just be to put
it crown, Jalen Warren the better of the two with
the group, bries Hall definitely the better back, at least
at this juncture.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Uh yeah, I think overall that's what you can say.
Right again, it's it's and this is going to be
a theme. It's the unknown. Do we know what Caleb
Johnson is going to be? No? Do we know what
Kenneth Gamwell is going to contribute? No? Do we know
if Jalen Warren is going to be able to handle
a bulk of the workload or if he isn't going

(22:35):
to get the bulk of the workload. No, you know,
Breese Hall is comparatively dependable. He's good in both the
run in the past game, he is consistent in contributing.
So you'd have you just have to give the nod
to the known versus the unknown. With that being said

(22:57):
that there is the potential for the Steelers running back
room to be a better room. It's just it's just
not not something you can statistically dictate at this point.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, Aaron sure, false, Aaron Rodgers just a guy passed past, past, past,
But would it benefit him or how has it benefited
him to hand off the ball over the year. Think
about some of the backs he had in Green Bay
when he finally got Aaron Jones there, for example, to
just really complimented the offense. Now, one of the knocks

(23:28):
that's been in Green Bay going back to Rogers still
having a tenure there, is looking for that wide receiver
because you know, after Defante Adams left Defanta Adams, this
goes into the next group, Brian, with the wide receivers.
I'm not certain one hundred percent whether we feel or
whether you feel that the Steelers even have a pretty

(23:48):
solid wide receiver group as a full unit, even just
comparing them to the Jets last year, just compare them anywhere,
does Rogers have the targets to actually throw two compared
to like a DeVante Adams, A, Garrett Wilson and Alan
Azzard all his buddies. He had Randall Cobb come back
up there too, but they had some struggles trying to
get some guys, like how long has Romeo Dobb's been

(24:12):
up there in Green Bay. I know it hasn't been
during the total Jordan love kind of time, but several
trying to just find like the other compliments are giving him.
Given Aaron Rodgers some guys on defense instead of offense,
wasn't very happy about it. Now you look at what
the Steelers have done. They've gotten rid of George Pickens,
and he only have DK Metcalf there, and Metcalf wasn't

(24:34):
really lighting up the scoreboards much in Seattle when he left.
Just right here. Still really good physical specimen, might I say,
probably better than anybody the Steelers have had as of late,
but still a question mark there as well.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Absolutely. I mean, look there's no question that the Jets
receiving corps is better than the Steelers receiving corps. I
don't think that's even a comparable comparison right now. You know,
I've been, you know, banging the drum for DK for
ever since he came out and was drafted, right, So,

(25:09):
you know, I'm thrilled to have DK metcalf here, and
I think he has the ability to be a solid
and good wide receiver one for the Steelers. I think that,
you know, maybe Aaron Rodgers will find a way to
uh to develop some chemistry with him and and they'll
be able to take advantage of these things. The problem is,
from there, the drop off remains the exact same way
it was last year without George Pickens here, which we

(25:33):
predicted was likely to happen. Right, Who is your number two?
It didn't find one in the draft. You're hoping that
Roman Wilson becomes that guy, or is it part of
the package of guys that become this this number two.
Maybe it's Pat Pryormouth. Maybe they go out and get
somebody else. You know, the likelihood that the receiver room

(25:54):
as it stands right now remains as it is, we
said it last year that it wasn't going to and
then it did because they couldn't get the job done.
They couldn't find somebody who was willing to take a
deal with the Steelers. That could be the same thing
this year. You know from all reports that they're saying
the Steelers aren't low balling people on offers. Of course
they are. That's the initiative. That's what you always start doing, right,

(26:16):
You always don't. You don't go out and go, We'll
give you a one for that guy. You go ahead
and go, would you take a conditional sixth? Right? Would
you take a fifth? And see what somebody says? And
then and then you let it percolate, right, you drop
the little the little thing in the pot there, You
let it percolate. And then when nobody else comes around,
you go, hey, that conditional six is looking pretty good
right now, isn't he still still? What do you think?

(26:37):
And see what happens. They're gonna try and add another piece.
I think they kind of have to try and add
another piece. Otherwise they're in the same boat they were
last year, where they've got a legit one and a
bunch of guys, you know, and you shut down one.
That doesn't mean you're gonna have anybody else take.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Over a potential legit one. I'm not sure he ever
ended to a one. Maybe just on the depth chart,
but in terms of the league a lot of other teams,
George Pickens is one tech yeah maybe yeah, the potential
the potential one there. And I'm not trying to trying
to rain on his parade, but there's very clear distance

(27:15):
between DK Metcalf being a one and George Pickens being
a one.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
If you were to well, I wasn't talking about George Pickens.
I was talking about.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but DK.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
George Pickens was not a one. He he was, He
had the potential to be a one and one he
did not. He wanted to be a one. He was not.
Last year we had a potential one and a bunch
of guys. This year we have a one and a
bunch of guys and we still aren't as good as
the Jets receiver.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
No, because Garrett Wilson could probably be a one, and
I know Lizard kind of like it's still never really
a one when he was in Green Bay, but you know,
they tried to kind of fit that round round peg
square hole type thing, or the other way around, square
peg round hole with Lazard being like a one B
or something like that. But I think, like I think

(28:06):
the biggest thing is does Aaron Rodgers Is Aaron Rodgers
an upgrade over Geno Smith when it comes to DK
Metcalf's production, I have to say yes, even at this
stage of Aaron Aaron Rodgers career, so those numbers might
take a bump over where DK has been in the
last couple of years. He's still, you know, twenty eight
years old. He's he's in his prime. Yeah, I think

(28:28):
that's a possibility.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
I do think Aaron Rodgers probably is going to give
a little better quarterback play than Gino Smith.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
I'm surprised you didn't have the sarcasm sign starting to
come up the other way around, because I'm not big
sarcastic about it.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
But you know, I do think that's probably the case.
I just again, I don't think I think that this
move was the move they had to make. I don't
think they had a lot of other options. I don't
anything else they did. Do I think there was any
move that was going to be dramatically bad and put
them as in as a Super Bowl contender. No, maybe

(29:04):
maybe if they got Matt Stafford, maybe right, like Kirk
Cousins wasn't gonna do it, Justin Fields wasn't gonna do it.
Uh Sam Darnold wasn't gonna do it right? What else
were they gonna do right? And and this way, they
didn't have to pay ridiculous amount of money, They didn't
give up a ton of draft capital, They didn't do
something dumb to put themselves in a position to try

(29:26):
and go for the championship this year knowing that they
probably didn't have the guys to do it. You know,
I just I feel like, Okay, it's a it's a
move that doesn't have a tremendous amount of upside, might
have more downside than it has upside. But I'm again,
I keep saying this over and over again. I'm okay

(29:48):
with it. I'm okay if we stick up the joint
next year, I'm okay.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
Killers just don't. They don't lie down for anybody.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
I know.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
They doesn't work. So last group tight ends there's not
a lot. Has actually kind of surprised me because just
on the surface level, the brand name you're talking about
hot Friarmuth and Tyler Conkling and okay, Aaron Rodgers. Throwing
either one of these guys probably going to improve the

(30:15):
tight end either one of them. But is there one
specific Do we believe that one specifically is better than
the other. When we're doing this comparison, some people are
gonna say Friarmuth and Friarmth to me has had some
He's had some highs and lows. He came in here
with Roethlisberger, it was just like, man, this guy's a
light lights out, you know, the potentials there catching everything

(30:39):
within his radius. But he's had a couple of fumbles.
He's had a couple drops that have been disappointed. Nothing
as big as Mark Andrews of course in the playoff
game with the Ravens. But Tyler Concklin kind of in
the same category as well. He is a guy that's
you know, he catches maybe forty to fifty balls five
hundred yards receiving were there. Last year was four forty

(31:02):
nine with four touchdowns. He didn't have a touchdown the
season before, but had six hundred and twenty one yards
out Aaron Rodgers is probably why he didn't have any
any touchdowns. It's very much so the Pat Friarmth kind
of statistics. The rest of the guys, like, how do
you really put like a Darnell Washington into this category,
you know what I mean? And when I look back

(31:22):
at this, I kind of forgot that Darnell Washington he
actually did a little bit last year, you know, I
forgot he had one of those. He had nineteen catches,
two hundred yards. He had nine first downs out of those,
so like half of his receptions went for a first down.
It was unbelievable. Didn't really think about it. You just think, hey,

(31:44):
they're not feeding this guy the ball enough. Maybe Aaron
Rodgers does that. So I almost have a push on
this because I think if Tyler Conklin's in the same
exact situation and he's played, he's played longer than Pat
Frarmuth has too. He's seven year veteran, going on on
eight years in the National Football League. He's got a
little more, you know, behind his name, but he doesn't

(32:07):
have a ton.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
He's got eleven.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Receiving touchdowns over that span, twenty five and forty four yards.
Pat has in four years has almost twenty two hundred
yards and eighteen so maybe I give the edge in
this case to the Steelers tight ends. This will be better,
And this might be better overall because Arthur Smith is
known to feed the tight end, which should maybe be

(32:33):
a better compliment with Aaron Rodgers being there. So I
don't know if you've got anything more to add. I
know I cheated a little off of that. We're gonna
get over to the other stuff too, So.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Look, this is the one area I'm gonna give the
edge to the Steelers. I think the Steelers tight ends
are probably a better package group than the Jets tight
ends are. You know. I like Pat. I think Pat
is the next inner ration of Heath. No is he
is dependable, no, but he's also potentially more explosive than

(33:05):
Heath was at times. I think he's slightly different type
of tight end. Uh And and you know, we'll see
he played better I think with Ben than he did
with any of the other quarterbacks of lesser quality, and
maybe that he will play better with Aaron Rodgers. Maybe
Aaron will be able to Spotty more, leading more, bring him,
throw him open more, you know, be able to take

(33:29):
advantage of his game. We'll see how that all turns out.
But in this instance, I do think the Steelers probably
have a better position group than the Jets did. Overall,
the nods still goes to the Jets, but in this one,
I'll give it a nod to the Steelers.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Oh that's mighty kind of You.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Wouldn't be all doom and gloom.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
That's fair enough. I'm surprised you don't want to bring
up Jeremy record with the Jets three in three years.
He said, yeah, okay, never mind. Anyways, moving on, one
of the things that's been talked about is close games
that the Jets were in. There were some. I mean,
Aaron Rodgers only won five games last season, correct, So

(34:15):
what happens when he has doesn't have to deal with
four or five different kickers like they did in New
York last year? And I mean they pulled you named
somebody and they probably pulled them off the street to
pull some kicking duties. They had Anders Carlson for five games,
they had Greg Zerline for eight games, Spencer Strader, Greg

(34:36):
Joseph Riley Patterson. They had five different kickers, and overall
they only converted seventy one point four percent of their
field goal attempts and ninety point three of their pats.
Boswell converted all of his point after attempts, and I
think I had the numbers here, let's see. I mean,

(35:00):
and Boswell was an All Pro last year, right, ninety
three point two percent of his tries, all but one
attempt under fifty yards, and then all thirty five of
his extra point attempts. That's that's a weapon. I mean,
when he got kicked six field goals in a game
and can win you the game just kicking field goals,
that's gonna help and benefit Aaron Rodgers. So I'd say

(35:21):
that with the special teams, Brian, how you feel about
the Jets coaching over the last two years versus what
the Steelers have that Aaron Rodgers is coming into a
little less of when you're tired of intangibles, the circus,
the control, better coaching, better, offensive coordinator better.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
This will be controversial, but it shouldn't be. It'll be
controversial to say this, and there'll be a lot of
insurers out there going, oh, you're crazy, but it shouldn't be. No,
the Steelers are. That's that's It's not even close. It's
not even close. No, it's terrible. A much better situation, coaching,
wise than it was on the Jets.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Just stop it is, Yeah, Robert Salah defensive corn er
and Jeff Ulbrick. You had Nathaniel Hackett lose his play
calling duties after Tey Law was sacked last season. It's
just and then you know, you take them, You take
Aaron Rodgers out of New York, out of that big
Apple media circus that's up there, and you place him

(36:22):
in Pittsburgh. I think that's a better overall situation for him.
The other things that happened with the off season, there
were a number of speculations Aaron Rodgers has a wedding
ring on now. I don't know if I mentioned a
little birdie and said something about that or not. Sometimes
I don't repeat things that I'm told because I keep
keep that in confidence. But now it's public info. That

(36:44):
was one of the things was he was looking around.
Is Pittsburgh a place that I wanted?

Speaker 2 (36:48):
You know, it's nice that he settled down at forty
one finally, you know, finally putting some roots in and
and and and grounding himself. You know, Ben did it
what after after he almost killed himself on a motorcycle.
So you know, now we don't have to worry about that.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Rogers was dating Shale and Woodleaf for a little while too.
And then I also heard from someone else they was
Solomon at Wilcotts was mentioning I'd depend it was one
of the XM guys that said that Rogers was tending
to a sick friend as well. So I didn't know.
I don't know that I saw that anywhere else, but
if that was the case, it might have been Ryan Leaf,
because Ryan Leaf said he's pretty good friends with Rogers

(37:25):
and he's on one of the shows during the week,
and I was like, WHOA. I'm like, is that like
the thing? And that doesn't come out publicly. It gives
a whole different sense of humanity versus a guy that's
just holding the team hostage or waiting for him to
say the right things. Instead, he's getting his life together,
you know, with you know, his life, his partner, of
choosing a spouse, or helping out someone that needs the care,

(37:49):
needs the assistance. Those things they should be bigger than
your job. And football is a job at this point.
So if he misses a little bit of football in
shorts because he's taking care of that, I'm not gonna
say anything bad about the guy for doing that.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Right, So I don't care that he didn't come to
mini camp he said, or to ot as we said,
Mini camp is the is the cutoff. He was there
at Mini camp, So I don't have a complaint about that.
You know, whatever was going on with his personal life
is fine. I mean, you know, the guy's played for
a billion years. You know, he doesn't need that. What

(38:24):
he needs is to get in there and get the
chemistry with the team, to understand Arthur Smith's playbook, to
get the you know, the timings down so that he
can continue. And he can do all that through through
Mini camp and training camp. Was never that was not
going to be the issue at any point. And I'm
not one that ever thought he was holding the Steelers hostage.
I said, long ago, in my mind, the Steelers made

(38:45):
them an offer. He said, I'll let you know, and
that was it. I don't think they were you know,
uh sittingers circled around in the room with their phones
in front of them, going his Aaron going to Texas
today is the day of the day. Oh, I don't know, Oh,
what will we do. I think they were like, fine,
we've made him the offer. Everybody.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Yeah, all the cameras were there for any camp man,
like definitely. So well, I just.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Don't buy that that holding hostage thing. I don't think
that's what happened. He took the time he was going
to take. The Steelers knew he was going to do it.
They had made their offer and they were done. Right.
That was it. It's like, okay, you're either coming or
you're not. If you come, great, If you don't, we've
made the arrangements we're gonna make, and we'll move forward
with who we got. Yep.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
I think, well, we're out of time for more of
this today, but we got to talk about what this
looks like against the rest of the AFC North. I
think Aaron Rodgers joining the Steelers maybe even if he didn't,
Steelers might still have a slight edge. I don't know,
I don't know. Maybe they didn't. Maybe that's being a
little bit too too much hyper bolobush. Yeah, over the

(39:51):
Browns with Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett, and I wonder
if they're.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
All right. I'm gonna ask you this just because well,
I gotta brought up the Browns.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Yeah, you brought him up.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
I tried to find out what the reporting was on
sdur Sanders for mini camp at with the Browns, and
I could find people who said he sucked and it
was terrible, and I could find people who said he
was the best and he should be the starter. I
couldn't find anybody in the middle. What have you heard?

Speaker 1 (40:23):
It seems like it's an extreme and I think there's
people that are really big fans of him from playing
in college. I think people were shocked. I think people
were in defense of their draft Twitter takes as usual,
so they want to right fight it and be hey,
I got this guy right. Everybody else was wrong. They
took him late. I got four quarterbacks, Like, so are.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
They gonna cut Flack?

Speaker 1 (40:47):
I mean, Flacco was kind of the I know Kenny
Pickett was sitting there and I was laughing at the
media day pictures of the way Pickett. I wish I
had the photo here, Picket holding the ball by the
nose of it, and I was like, it's the smaller
part of the ball. It's not very flattering and almost
looks like an AI hand the way it was gripping
it with the gloves. But I'm just like, is he
the starter or as Flack as the starter, because either

(41:09):
of those guys go out on the street, they're gonna
probably join up with another team, unless Flaco Flacco's older,
if his arm's blown out or something like that, but
I'm sure he could still find work somewhere. Picket, you know,
he's bounced around now. This is his third team, and
you got two rookies, both of which I think if
you throw them on the waiver wire or Picket would
still end up on the waiver wire. Somebody's gonna snap

(41:31):
them up more than likely for how cheap that is
and how low risk their contracts are. Oh yeah, so
I don't know what this team's going to do. They're
gonna put somebody on IR, like is Sanders or Gabriel
gonna go on IR join Watson over there, because they
still got Watson technically on the roster too. It's like
all the quarterbacks, it's like Oprah giving them out. You

(41:53):
have a quarterback, Browns. You could take this quarterback and
this quarterback and this quarterback. But anyways, I finished doing
a yard sale just over the weekend. Dude, you're talking
about haggling and you're talking about the contract. It just
made me think of this guy that came up, you
wanted a big pile of movies of selling, and it
was only like two bucks apiece. And there's good stuff
in there, you know what I mean. It's not like
a bunch of like just stuff, no junk, nobody wants.

(42:15):
But nobody wants physical movies anymore. Everybody's streaming, and he's
talking me down to less than a dollar apiece for
him for the whole group or package, and we go
back and forth everything like that. Aaron Rodgers had said
it wasn't about money, so and I guess it wasn't.
In the end, Omar Cohn, Hey, if this gets the
Steelers a little further down the road closer to sniffing

(42:35):
a championship, we're going to talk about that. I think
that's gonna be what we're going to talk about next.
As we're waiting for training camp at the end of July.
We're still stuck in the middle of June.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
So it's all right, I gotta tell you my yard
sales story now, oh to go along with your haggling story.
So we used to have yard sales at least once
a summer, right, That was our attempt to offload the
excess crap that we had that we didn't want anymore,
and what would happen Therefore, all during the year, as
my wife would tell me, we couldn't throw things away

(43:05):
because I was depleting her stock for the for the
yard sale. But that being said, we'd have the yard sale.
As a woman who lives across the street, maybe two
blocks down, a very cranky, crotchety older woman in the
vein of you know what's the winter? No much worse

(43:25):
than me with the week. So she comes over. My
wife has this little teeny glass teapot thing, right, little
decorative thing. It's marked a quarter twenty five cents, right,
it probably costs ten dollars when somebody bought it. It was
marked a quarter. The woman comes up and goes, would
you take a nickel? And my wife goes, no, it's

(43:48):
a quarter. And she goes fine, puts it down, stomps
across the street, goes back to her house, and we're like,
it's a quarter. Do you even have a nickel in
your purse?

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Hey man? She needed to go shop at all these
she didn't want to give up her last car.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Don't get don't give all the a bad name now,
pretty nice. He's a pretty nice store.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
But you need a quarner to be able to take
the cart out, so she couldn't give it up.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
That's true. The only thing that really bothers me about
all these is the stupid quarters in the carts.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah, but you know what that Even the market provides
for that as well. There is like a little key
chain thing and it's like in the shape of a quarter,
and it just goes in far enough to click the
clickie thing and then you can go about your shopping
and whatnot. And I think you could do it and
just release it and then just be a complete menace
to society and leave leave a cart out there in

(44:45):
the lot without a quarter in it. And now that
person doesn't that gathers the carts no longer gets the
bonus of doing so. So I know, imagine that though
buying a three dollars thing just so you didn't have
to carry a cord, I get it, like I'd forget quarters.
I have like a little change thing in the car,
just in a couple of bags too, just in case

(45:06):
I end up at Aldie. But I'll end up there
soon enough. Man Fourth of July cookout later in a
few weeks. So got some good burgers at all. They've
got lots of good stuff, but we'll table that for
another time. My friend, thanks for joining me once again.
Always fun talking football. Sorry all, and so we were
gone a little bit longer, but we went from Friday

(45:26):
from the previous show over the weekend. Let it December
a little with the Aaron Rodgers stuff, and we're back
here now on an earlier week schedule because now we're
starting to get on track to line up with opening
up training camp in a month. So look back for
us here early next week. I think we're going to
talk about the AFC North, those other quarterbacks, those other teams,
and see if there's any other movement on the Steelers end. Still,

(45:49):
you know it's going to be quiet, I think until
training camps start to heat up and you really see
what you've got. They just had a little bit of
that with Mani camp, but just not enough maybe to
pull the trigger on those rumored John L. Smith Gabe
Davis came in and left without a contract. Maybe he's
not one hundred percent healthy. Maybe they'll give him another
go in a month and see what his knee looks like.

(46:10):
Sou but they're definitely looking and there's definitely some rumors.
We'll see what Terry McLaurin is doing there in Washington,
so he's getting up there a little bit.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
I'm all in for Terry.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
I would take sorry, I would definitely.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Depending depending on what it takes to get.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
Him always true. But Steelers have that draft capital and
we'll see what they do with it in the in
the next year. Folks, don't forget the like, comment and subscribe.
My name is Joe, his name's Brian, and thank you
for watching or listening wherever you may be. If you're
watching on YouTube, thank you. Don't forget Spotify next day

(46:49):
unless I forget to do it. And that's what happened
last week, So, uh, Spotify listeners, our watchers had to
wait a little bit longer. I'll try not to do
that to you and this time around until next time.
We encourage everyone out there to be safe, be good,
and we'll catch you in. We would like to thank
you for listening and remind our listeners to follow us
on social.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Media and our website www.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Dot steel City Underground dot com.

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